Cookie sets off again with her compatriots - Chiara, a hot-blooded professor, and her nubile, bemused daughter, Izzy; Muscovado Taine, Izzy's lover, a Jamaican who smells of allspice; Ananda, a blond attorney with her own surprising love bond; and the painter and father-to-be, Renato. They head together for San Francisco Bay, hoping to travel from there to the Lost Coast itself.

All along the way, the stories they need seek them out: the story of two hitchhikers who turn out to be an ancient poet and a medieval saint; the story of the coyote, who is marking out the progress of the soul; the story of Chiara and Ananda enticing chosen students into a future that loves them; and the old true story of the Music of the Spheres.