“How did you pry it open if it was that big?”

“I didn’t have to, Beloved. The old whale touched the shell with her fin, and the oyster opened itself for us.”

“How very peculiar,” Zelana said.

“The old whale told me that the oyster wanted me to have the pearl, so I took it. I did thank the oyster, but I’m not sure it could understand me. It was a little hard to swim and hold my pearl at the same time, but the old whale offered to carry me back home.”

“Carry?”

“Well, not exactly. I rode on her back. That is so much fun.” Eleria held the pearl up. “See how it glows pink, Beloved? It’s even prettier than the ceiling of our grotto.” She nestled her pearl, which was about the size of an apple, against her cheek. “I love it!” she declared.

“Did you eat today?” Zelana asked.

“I had plenty earlier today, Beloved. My friends and I found a school of herring and ate our fill.”

“Did the whale have a name, by any chance?”

“The dolphins just called her ‘mother.’ She isn’t really their mother, of course. I think it’s more like a way to let her know that they love her.”

“She speaks the same language as the dolphins?”

“Sort of. Her voice isn’t as squeaky, though.” Eleria crossed to her bed of moss. “I’m very tired, Beloved,” she said, sinking down onto her bed. “It was a long swim out to the islet, and mother whale swims faster than I do, so even though she slowed down, I had trouble keeping up with her.”

“Why don’t you go to sleep, then, Eleria? I’m sure you’ll feel much better in the morning.”

“That sounds like a terribly good idea, Beloved,” Eleria said. “I’m really having trouble keeping my eyes open.” She lay back on her bed of moss with the glowing pink pearl cradled to her heart.

Zelana was puzzled, and just a trifle concerned. It wasn’t really natural for whales and dolphins to associate with each other in the way Eleria had just described, and Zelana was almost positive that they wouldn’t be able to speak to each other and be understood. Something very peculiar had happened today.

Eleria appeared to be sound asleep now, and her limbs had relaxed. Then, to Zelana’s astonishment, the glowing pink pearl rose up into the air above the sleeping child. Its pink glow grew steadily stronger, and the glow seemed to enclose Eleria.

“Don’t interfere, Zelana,” a very familiar voice echoed in Zelana’s mind. “This is necessary, and I don’t need any help from you.”

Eleria awoke somewhat later than usual the following morning, and she had a somewhat puzzled look on her face as she sat cross-legged on her bed of moss with her pearl in her hand. “Why do we sleep, Beloved?” she asked.

“I don’t,” Zelana replied, “and I’m not sure exactly why other creatures seem to need to sleep every so often.”

“I thought you and I were of the same kind,” Eleria said. “We look very much alike—except that your hair is dark and glossy and mine is sort of yellow.”

“I’ve wondered about that myself. Maybe I’ve just outgrown the need for sleep. I am quite a bit older than you are, after all.” It was a simplified answer, but Zelana was quite certain that Eleria wasn’t quite ready for the real one just yet.

“Since you don’t sleep, you wouldn’t know about the strange things I seem to see happening while I’m asleep, would you?”

“They’re called ‘dreams,’ Eleria,” Zelana told her, “and I don’t think any other creature has the same kind of dreams you do. My brother Dahlaine told me that your dreams would be very special, and much more important than the dreams of the ordinaries. Did you have a dream last night that frightened you?”

“It didn’t particularly frighten me, Beloved. It just seemed very strange, for some reason.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” Zelana suggested.

“Well, I seemed to be floating—except that I wasn’t floating in Mother Sea the way I do sometimes when I want to rest and catch my breath. I was floating way up in the air instead, and all sorts of strange things were happening far below. Father Earth seemed to be all on fire, and his mountains were rising and falling, the way Mother Sea’s waves do. Rocks were melting and running down the sides of some of Father Earth’s mountains into Mother Sea, and some of his other mountains were spouting liquid fire way up into the sky. Could something like that really happen?”

“Yes, child,” Zelana said in a troubled voice, “and it happened in exactly the way you just described it. I was there watching while it happened. It was at the very beginning of the world. What happened next?”

“Well, the fires kept burning for a long, long time, and then the land below me started to break apart, and the pieces floated off in different directions. Then trees began to sprout on the face of Father Earth, and Mother Sea started having children. It was along about then that I seemed to know that I wasn’t alone. Others were having the same dream—only maybe for them it wasn’t really a dream.”

Zelana smiled. “No, dear, it wasn’t. I was one of those others, and I certainly wasn’t dreaming, and neither were my brothers or my sister.”

“Then it was your family that was sort of hiding around the edges of my dream?” Eleria asked. “I thought you only had two brothers and one sister. There seemed to be two more brothers and a sister watching with me.”

“They’re another branch of the family, Eleria,” Zelana told her. “We don’t get together very often. We can talk about them some other time. Why don’t you tell me what happened next in your dream? Dreams fade, I understand, and I’d like to hear your whole dream before you forget.”

“Well, most of Mother Sea’s children were fish, but some of them weren’t. Those were the ones who crawled up onto the face of Father Earth. They sort of looked like snakes at first, but then they sprouted legs and they grew up to be very big. Some of them ate trees, but some of the others ate the ones who were eating trees. Then a great big rock that was on fire fell down out of the sky, and when it hit Father Earth it made an awful splash, except that it was rock that splashed instead of water, and everything got dark for a long time. It finally started to get light again, but the snakes with legs weren’t there anymore.”