Droply 
Far below the waves, where the sunlight fades from bright blue to deep blue to the soft velvet black of the deep sea, there lived a whale named Oriel.
Oriel was a collector. Some creatures collect shells, and some collect shiny pebbles, and some collect stories. But Oriel collected songs.
Every whale in the ocean has a song. It's how they talk to each other across hundreds of miles of water: long, low, beautiful sounds that ripple through the sea like ribbons. And Oriel had spent her whole life swimming from one ocean to the next, listening to every song she could find, and remembering each one.
She knew the bright, bubbly songs of the young dolphins in the warm tropical reefs. She knew the slow, rumbling songs of the old gray whales near the ice. She knew the playful clicking songs of the orcas and the deep, mysterious songs of whales so far down that no human had ever seen them.
She kept them all in her heart, like treasures in a chest.
One evening, as Oriel was swimming near the surface, watching the moon ripple on the water above her, she heard a sound she had never heard before. It was very faint, very small, and a little bit sad.
She followed it, gliding slowly through the dark water, until she found a baby whale, all alone, floating near a coral reef.
"Hello, little one," said Oriel gently. "Are you lost?"
"I got separated from my family in a storm," said the baby whale. His name was Pim. "I've been singing and singing, but they can't hear me. And I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I feel scared."
Oriel swam closer, her great body a comforting shadow in the water. "I know many songs," she said. "Would you like me to sing you one?"
Pim nodded.
So Oriel began to sing. She sang the song of the old gray whales near the ice, slow and deep and steady, a song about patience and long journeys. The sound flowed through the water, warm and calm, and Pim felt his body begin to relax.
Then she sang the song of the humpbacks in the southern sea, a song about coming home after a long time away. Pim closed his eyes.
And then she sang a song that she had learned long, long ago, from her own mother. It was the oldest song she knew, sung by whale mothers to their babies for thousands of years. It had no words, only a rising and falling melody, like waves on a calm night, like breathing in and breathing out.
As she sang, something wonderful happened.
Far away, across the dark water, another song answered.
Pim's eyes flew open. "That's my mother!" he whispered. "She knows that song too!"
Oriel smiled and kept singing. The answering song came closer and closer, until out of the blue darkness swam Pim's whole family: his mother, his father, and his big sister, all singing the ancient lullaby together.
Pim swam to his mother, and she wrapped her great fin around him. The two families sang together for a long time, their voices blending into one soft, enormous song that filled the whole sea.
When it was over, Pim's mother turned to Oriel. "Thank you," she said. "How can we ever repay you?"
Oriel thought for a moment. "Teach me your family's song," she said. "I'd like to add it to my collection."
So they did.
That night, the two families floated together near the surface, beneath the silver moon. Pim slept peacefully, tucked beside his mother. And Oriel floated nearby, humming quietly to herself, going over every song in her collection, one by one, like counting stars.
The newest one, Pim's family song, was her favorite of all.
Tonight, imagine you are floating in a calm, dark sea, safe and warm. Far away, a whale is singing the oldest lullaby in the world: rising and falling, like breathing in… and breathing out.
Let the song carry you to sleep.
