The Owls’ Choir

Once a year, on the longest night, every owl in the woods gathers in the clearing under the old oak. They line up — by height, mostly, though sometimes by age — and Pip stands at the front, because Pip is the one with the best ear.

They are about to begin the Owls' Choir.

The choir has only one song. They have been practising it, on and off, for as long as there have been owls. It is a slow, low song with a great deal of breath in it. It sounds, if you have to compare it to something, a little like wind moving through tall grass. Or perhaps a river just before it freezes. Or — and this is closer — the sound a kettle makes just before it boils, but slower, and softer, and gentler.

The song has no words. Owls do not have much use for words.

The first owl — usually a small one named Wally, because he likes the spotlight — starts the note. He holds it for a long time. The other owls join one by one. Then Pip raises a small wing, and the choir hums together, all together, in a long round soft chord that fills the clearing and pours out into the woods.

A fox curled up nearby twitches her tail in her sleep.

A mouse rolls over in her hole and pulls her blanket higher.

A small hedgehog who had been considering whether to fully fall asleep decides to commit.

The song spreads. Through the woods. Past the woods. Down into the town. In through bedroom windows. Across pillows. Into ears.

And everywhere it reaches, people fall a little more deeply asleep.

This is the Owls' Choir, on the longest night of the year. They do it because they have always done it. They do it because somebody has to. And nobody, in all the long history of owls, has ever done it better than Pip.

When the song ends, the owls bow politely to each other — owls bow with great formality — and fly home to their oak doors and their warm scarves.

The longest night gets a little shorter, slowly, until at last it is morning.

And the woods stay grateful all year.