NIGHTMARE!
by Kathryn. D. Green
Boom!!
"Mommy!" Felipe screamed, scanning the battlefield frantically. "Mommy, where are you?! Mommy!!!"
The seven-year-old peasant boy covered his eyes and wept. Thick, choking dust made him cough. A cannonball exploded next to the pushcart he was squatting in--
"Felipe?"
Boom!! The terrified boy squeezed his eyes shut and froze.
"Felipe! Wake up! You're dreaming."
That wasn't his mother's voice. Or his father's!
Arms clasped him to a chest. "It's all right, amigo, you were having a bad dream. Shh, it's all right. I'm here." Don Diego de la Vega's voice soothed the terrified boy as he silently whimpered. Felipe's chin rested against the patrón's shoulder.
The young servant boy nestled against the caballero's chest, took a deep breath, and sighed in relief. Of course he'd been dreaming. For a long moment, Diego just held him tightly, rocking him and speaking soothingly.
A loud crack of thunder startled them both. At that point, Felipe reclined back on his soft pillows. He looked up at the kindhearted caballero as he sat on the edge of the bed, with the mattress creaking under him. Felipe then scanned his pitch-black bedroom; all he saw were shadowy outlines of furniture and other objects. Don Diego's coal-black hair looked disheveled, and he had donned one of his silk bathrobes.
Rain drummed the red-tile roof. Of course, he thought, it's still raining. It's been thundering, too. Loud!
Relief flooded his heart. It had been storming since late afternoon, ever since the alcalde had tried to punish Sergeant Mendoza for "letting" Zorro outsmart him and open the dam that had kept the plaza water from flowing. As Zorro, Don Diego had foiled the alcalde's plan to tax the villagers and farmers for the water, and the enraged alcalde had taken out his wrath on Mendoza. The rain had started pouring down, spoiling the alcalde's plan to punish the sergeant by making him stand duty in full uniform on a sweltering-hot day.
The 13-year-old boy wriggled back into a sitting position and leaned against his patrón again. Don Diego hugged him tightly for a long moment. "It's all right," he said softly. "It's just storming outside, that's all. You're safe and sound in your own comfortable bed, and I'm right here with you."
Felipe nodded. In that instant, guilt shot through him. He had disturbed Diego's sleep by having another of his bad dreams, and after promising himself he would never do so.
At last, Felipe leaned back against the pillows again and signed a question. Don Diego smiled.
"I was on my way back to my room after getting a drink of water in the kitchen," he explained. "I decided to check on you. You were thrashing and squirming, so I knew you were having a nightmare. When that loud thunderclap startled me, I knew it would wake you."
Felipe smiled gratefully. Even though he didn't have these awful nightmares nearly as frequently as he once had, they still plagued him sometimes, especially during the rainy seasons. When he was seven years old, he had lost his parents in a revolutionary battle. Don Diego, who had been returning to Los Angeles from a funeral in Guadalajara at the time, had found him three days later and brought him to Los Angeles. Felipe had relived that ordeal in his sleep incessantly for a long time afterward.
"Want me to sit with you, amigo, until you go back to sleep?" Don Diego brushed the servant boy's brown hair out of his eyes. "I don't think you'll have any more bad dreams tonight."
Felipe nodded. His master patted his arm and smiled tenderly. Relief that he didn't have to go back to sleep alone and guilt at keeping Diego awake warred inside the boy.
For a long time, Diego sat silently on the side of the bed. Try as he did, Felipe couldn't close his eyes. He couldn't stop thinking about the nightmare; it had been awful! The boy shivered.
Nor could he stop feeling badly about waking up Don Diego. Time after time since the caballero's return from Spain, several months before, Felipe had had similar nightmares. Not wanting to disturb either of his patróns, he had tried to cope with them by himself.
Unfortunately, his efforts to do so invariably robbed him of his own sleep. It took him hours to nod back off, because the dream's terror took so long to subside. In the morning, Felipe would shuffle around, bleary-eyed and still shaken from the night's terrors.
It always worries Don Diego and Don Alejandro when I wake up feeling like that, he thought ruefully. I can tell from the way they look at me. I wonder if they know? They act kinder toward me on those days, so I know they know something.
A bolt of lightning lit up the room for a second. An earsplitting thunderclap immediately followed; Felipe practically jumped. I hate thunder! he thought, trembling. It reminds me of cannonblasts!
Don Diego winced. "You know, Felipe, those loud claps of thunder really hurt my ears." Felipe nodded agreement. They sure did.
Don Diego cupped his fingertips under the servant boy's chin. "Why don't you tell me about your nightmare?" he asked gently. "It might help to get it off your chest."
Felipe hesitated, then nodded. As Don Diego watched, Felipe described in signs the terrifying events in his dream. Diego winced and shook his head as Felipe described his parents' death and his own terror. More cracks of thunder followed, but none of them were as loud as that earlier one.
"That must have been a frightening dream, my friend." Diego traced the outline of Felipe's forehead with his fingertips. "But you're safe now. I'm right here with you, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
Felipe nodded. With signs, he asked if the nightmares would ever go away altogether.
Don Diego sighed. "I don't know, Felipe." He squeezed the boy's hand. "I hope so, and I'm pretty sure they will. At least they don't happen as often as they used to. My father and I can always tell the morning after if you had a nightmare the night before. Something about your eyes, your demeanor, your skin color--little things like that."
Felipe nodded ruefully. His suspicions had just been confirmed.
Diego smiled kindly. "Well, you know, Felipe, I'm glad we can tell. Because we know to do what we can to comfort you when you've had a bad dream."
Felipe smiled back, gratefully. They did, indeed. He was very lucky to have two patróns who were so attentive to his physical and emotional needs. He was lucky to have them, period!
At least, when I have a bad dream, I have them to comfort me the next day, he thought.
Diego gazed at him, a serious expression etching his face. "Felipe, I'm going to ask you some questions. I want you to answer me honestly, all right?"
Felipe nodded. A twinge of uneasiness shot through his stomach. When Don Diego spoke like that, it was impossible for Felipe to evade the subject the patrón wanted to bring up.
"Have your nightmares been waking you in the middle of the night?"
Felipe gazed at his hands until Don Diego covered them with his own. Reluctantly, the boy nodded. Outside, a faint boom of thunder sounded.
"Do you quickly go back to sleep when that happens?"
Felipe hesitated, then shook his head. Every time a nightmare had interrupted his sleep, he had lain in frozen terror for hours afterward. He hesitated to wake anyone up when that happened.
"You've had a hard time going back to sleep on those nights, haven't you?"
The boy nodded again. He didn't look at Don Diego.
"You don't say anything when that happen?"
Felipe shook his head, still keeping it down.
"Because you're afraid of disturbing my father and me?"
Felipe nodded. He did not look up at his master.
"Felipe." Cupping his fingers under the servant boy's chin again, Diego raised Felipe's head until he was looking directly at his patrón. "Felipe, listen to me." He laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I understand your not wanting to disturb our sleep, but this is as much a concern of ours as your being sick would be. I would expect you to awaken me, you know, if you woke up in the middle of the night feeling ill and running a fever."
Felipe nodded. He did know that.
"The next time this happens, I want you to come to my room and tell me, all right? Do it even if I'm fast asleep. Or if I'm not available, I'm sure my father would be willing."
"I certainly would be." As a startled Diego and Felipe looked toward the door, Don Alejandro, dressed in one of his own silk bathrobes, gray hair disheveled, strode toward the bed. Smiling, he bent down to kiss Felipe's forehead. "I don't want your sleep interrupted time and again by these nightmares either." He rubbed the top of Felipe's head.
Felipe made signs to apologize to both de la Vegas for interrupting their sleep like this. Don Alejandro held up his hand. "No apologies are necessary, amigo; you didn't wake me. The storm did, and then I needed to relieve myself. I saw Diego enter your quarters and when he didn't come out, I guessed what had happened."
"The same storm woke me, too," Don Diego added.
Don Alejandro bent over, resting his hand on the pillow next to Felipe's head. "Felipe, Diego, here, speaks for both of us. I also want you to come to us the next time this happens, even if you have to wake us up. Come to me if for some reason you can't go to Diego. Promise?"
Felipe nodded. The aged don patted his shoulder and smiled approvingly.
"Well, my son, I'm going back to bed." Don Alejandro squeezed his son's shoulder. "Are you going to sit up with Felipe?"
"Yes, until he goes back to sleep."
Don Alejandro left the bedroom. Don Diego craned his head toward the window. "I do believe the storm's passing on through. There's been no more loud cracks of thunder in a while." Felipe shook his head and smiled. The caballero kissed the boy's forehead.
"Close your eyes, my friend; you need to try to go back to sleep. I don't want you waking up bleary-eyed in the morning." Don Diego smiled affectionately. "I'll sing you a lullaby; how's that?"
Felipe smiled back at him. As Don Diego sang to him a series of medleys, the rain gradually stopped. Peace swirled in Felipe's heart and sleep overtook him. This time, the boy's sleep was dreamless. Unknown to him, Don Diego smiled with satisfaction as he pulled the covers up to Felipe's chin and returned to his own comfortable suite of rooms.
THE END