Every night, just before the forest went quiet, Barnaby would take out a small glass jar — round and green and slightly wobbly — and walk slowly through the trees. Whenever he heard a goodnight being said, he would uncork the jar, let the goodnight float inside, and then gently press the cork back in.

“Goodnight, little acorn,” a squirrel would say to her nest, and — pop — Barnaby would catch it.

“Goodnight, bright river,” a frog would croak before tucking himself under a lily pad, and — pop — in it went.

“Goodnight, sleepy moon,” an owl would whisper, blinking her great round eyes, and — pop — Barnaby would smile and walk on.

By the time he reached his den at the roots of the oldest oak, the jar was full of soft glowing lights — pink and gold and pale blue — all the goodnights of the forest, drifting gently inside the glass like tiny warm stars.

One evening, as Barnaby made his usual round, he heard something he had never heard before — or rather, he heard something he had never not heard before.

Silence.

Not the good kind of silence — the warm, sleepy silence of a forest settling in for the night. This was a thin, cold, lonely silence, coming from a hollow log near the edge of the brook.

Barnaby lumbered over and peered inside. There, curled into the very smallest ball a creature could make of itself, was a young hedgehog. Her spines were pulled tight around her. Her nose was tucked under her paw. And she was very, very still — not asleep, but pretending to be, the way small things do when they are trying not to be noticed.

“Hello,” said Barnaby softly.

One eye opened. Then closed again quickly.

“I’m collecting goodnights,” Barnaby said, settling down beside the log with the patience of something very large and very gentle. “I noticed I didn’t have one from you.”

A long pause. Then, in the smallest voice: “Nobody ever says goodnight to me.”

Barnaby looked at the jar in his paw. All those soft glowing lights — every goodnight from every creature in the forest — and not one of them had ever drifted toward this hollow log.

He uncorked the jar.

One by one, the goodnights floated out — pink, gold, pale blue — drifting quietly through the night air. They settled around the hollow log like warm embers. They landed on the hedgehog’s spines, softly, like the lightest possible snow. And the hedgehog — whose name, she whispered, was Nell — slowly, slowly uncurled.

Her nose came out first. Then one paw. Then both eyes, wide and dark and wondering.

“Are those…”

“Goodnights,” said Barnaby. “Every one in the forest. They were always meant for you too. I just didn’t know to bring them sooner.”

Nell looked at the little lights settling around her — warm as a fire, soft as a held breath — and something in her chest that had been wound very tight for a very long time slowly came undone.

Barnaby walked home with an empty jar that night. He didn’t mind. The jar would fill up again tomorrow. It always did.

But as he settled into his den and pulled his great paws under his chin, he heard something new drifting through the trees — faint and small and entirely real:

“Goodnight, forest,” said a hedgehog voice. “Goodnight, oak. Goodnight, brook. Goodnight, big brown bear.”

Barnaby smiled the widest smile a bear had ever smiled in the Hushwood Forest. He reached out one paw, uncorked the jar one last time, and caught the best goodnight he had ever collected.

Then he closed his eyes, and the whole forest — every tree, every brook, every small thing in every hollow — breathed out at once, and slept.