The Keeper of Sleepy Hollow

Chapter 2: One little bear who is not sleepy at all

The small brown bear’s name was Moss, and Moss was absolutely, completely, entirely not tired.

“Not even a little bit,” Moss told the Keeper, when she arrived at the hollow with her soft golden lantern and her coat the colour of warm shadows.

“Is that so,” said the Keeper, sitting down on a mossy log which was Moss’s favourite log, so this felt extremely reasonable and setting her lantern between them.

“I have been thinking,” Moss said very seriously, “about a great many things, and I cannot sleep until I have thought about all of them.”

“What sorts of things?” the Keeper asked. She did not seem to be in any hurry, which was interesting, given that she had the entire world left to tuck in.

Moss thought about it. “I was thinking about where the sun goes,” Moss said. “When it goes away at night. Where does it go?”

“It goes to the other side of the world,” the Keeper said, “to wake up all the children who went to sleep while you were having your day. It is very busy and very good at its job.”

“Oh,” said Moss. This was satisfying. “And the wind? Where does the wind go when it stops?”

“The wind doesn’t stop,” the Keeper said. “It only goes quiet. It is still there, just resting its voice. The way you do when you have talked a great deal and need to be still for a while.”

Moss considered this. The hollow was very quiet. The trees stood in a soft dark ring, and their leaves made the gentlest possible sound barely a sound at all, more like the memory of a sound and Moss noticed, for the first time, that it was actually quite a lovely sound to sit next to.

“One more question,” Moss said, though the voice was a little slower now than it had been before.

“One more,” the Keeper agreed.

“What if I miss something?” Moss said. “While I am asleep. What if something wonderful happens and I miss it because my eyes are closed?”

The Keeper looked at Moss for a long quiet moment. The lantern glowed between them, warm and gold.

“Nothing wonderful,” she said softly, “happens without saving a little piece of itself for you to find in the morning. That is what mornings are for. All the wonderful things that happened in the night leave themselves behind in the dew on the grass and the colour of the early sky and the way the air smells before anyone else has breathed it.” She tucked the lantern light a little closer. “You will not miss it, Moss. It will be waiting for you.”

Moss thought about the dew on the grass. And the colour of the early sky. And the air before anyone else had breathed it.

And found, quite suddenly, that the eyes were very heavy indeed.

“All right,” Moss said, in a very small voice. “Just for a little while.”

The Keeper smiled and stood, and lifted her lantern, and hummed the same low slow hum she used for the rivers soft and unhurried, a sound like warm blankets and the end of a long good day. Moss curled up on the mossy log, nose tucked into paws, and the hollow grew still and golden and quiet all around.

By the time the Keeper reached the edge of the trees, Moss was fast asleep.

Dreaming, probably, of mornings.