In the year 2000, a doctoral student of psychology awakened. His life, he realized, consisted of a series of odysseys up and down El Camino Real, the King's Highway linking the Mission cities of the Golden State. It was as though some secret voice-of-place were calling out for his attention and imposing itself on his will. And as he followed in the footsteps of Junipero Serra, spiritual conquistador of coastal California, he found himself living over historical themes that had traumatized the counties he entered. Nor was he alone, for behind him came La Llorona, the Weeping Woman of Mexico, as close on his trail as he was on Serra's...