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Something, or someone, had turned them to stone. Probably that evil disembodied head and pair of hands. And now, for some reason, his parents didn’t remember.

Something had made them forget.

Jamie stared into the darkness. What, he thought, if these weren’t his parents? If his parents were still stone, hidden away somewhere? What if these substitutes were bad people — kidnappers or worse — people who just looked like his real parents. What if they were evil people who were just waiting for him to fall asleep, and then they would turn to monsters, with teeth and fangs and a horrible light in their eyes, and they would tear him to bits right here in the bed…

Talons of panic clawed at Jamie’s heart. Selena’s song echoed in his ears. He wasn’t going to sleep! He wasn’t!

And then he did. It wasn’t anything like normal sleep—it was as if sleep was imposed on him, as if something had just ordered his mind to sleep. It was just like a wave that rolled over him, an irresistible force, blotting out his senses, his body, his mind…

I won’t sleep! he thought in defiance, but then his thoughts were extinguished.

When he woke he was back in his own bed, and it was morning, and Mister Jeepers was floating outside the window. “Jamie’s awake!” he sang. “Jamie’s awake and ready for a new day!”

And then his parents came bustling in, kissing him and petting him and taking him downstairs for breakfast.

His fears seemed foolish now, in full daylight, with Mister Jeepers dancing in the air outside and singing happily.

But sometimes, at night while Selena crooned by his bedside, he gazed into the darkness and felt a thrill of fear.

And he never forgot, not entirely.

—

A few days later Don Quixote wandered into the world, a lean man who frequently fell off his lean horse in a clang of homemade armor. He was given to making wan comments in both English and his own language, which turned out to be Spanish.

“Can you teach me Spanish irregular verbs?” Jamie asked.

“Sí, naturalmente,” said Don Quixote. “But I will have to teach you some other Spanish as well.” He looked particularly mournful. “Let’s start with corazón. It means ‘heart.’ Mi corazón,” he said with a sigh, “is breaking for love of Dulcinea.”

After a few sessions with Don Quixote — mixed with a lot of sighing about corazóns and Dulcinea — Jamie took a grip on his courage, marched up to El Castillo, and spoke to La Duchesa. ¿Pierdo, sueño, haría, ponto!? he cried.

La Duchesa’s eyes widened in surprise, and as she bent toward Jamie her severe face became almost kindly. “You are obviously a very intelligent boy,” she said. “You may enter my castle.”

And so Don Quixote and La Duchesa, between the two of them, began to teach Jamie to speak Spanish. If he did well, he was allowed into the parts of the castle where the musicians played and the dancers stamped, where brave Castilian knights jousted in the tilting yard, and Señor Esteban told stories in Spanish, always careful to use words that Jamie already knew.

Jamie couldn’t help but notice that sometimes Don Quixote behaved strangely. Once, when Jamie was visiting the Whirlikins, Don Quixote charged up on his horse, waving his sword and crying out that he would save Jamie from the goblins that were attacking him. Before Jamie could explain that the Whirlikins were harmless, Don Quixote galloped to the attack. The Whirlikins, alarmed, screwed themselves into the ground where they were safe, and Don Quixote fell off his horse trying to swing at one with his sword. After poor Quixote fell off his horse a few times, it was Jamie who had to rescue the Don, not the other way around.

It was sort of sad and sort of funny. Every time Jamie started to laugh about it, he saw Don Quixote’s mournful face in his mind, and his laugh grew uneasy.

After awhile, Jamie’s sister Becky began to share Jamie’s lessons. She joined him and Princess Gigunda on the trip to the little schoolhouse, learned reading and math from Mrs. Winkle, and then, after some coaching from Jamie and Don Quixote,