Finding Queen Calafia

2. The Fairgrounds Orphan

2002 - County Fairgrounds in Northern California

The oppressive heat, the air thick with the odor of livestock, the rumbling noise of generators, the sound of screaming children, the strange and secret language of the ride operators, the scent of cotton candy and hot dogs. These were the telltale signs that summer had arrived. For Luis Arauso, who was just shy of his ninth birthday, the start of the County Fair meant work.

Already there were lines for the rides and the fairground gates had only just opened. He wanted to be first in line to ride the Zipper, before he had food in his stomach and before the ride went offline for repairs as it always did. His mother was setting up her stall. During the school year, she ran her company, Doña Lydia's Apothecary, out of an old barn on a dairy farm near the coast that she rented from her cousin Jaime. Luis attended elementary school only when his mother thought he needed some kids his own age to play with. The day before she would pull him out of school, she would tell him, "The world is one enormous classroom, and you don't learn much about it from a desk."

On the farm, Luis was free to roam in the hills and woods that surrounded it. One of Jaime's sons had shown him how to fish in a nearby reservoir. By the late summer, when county fairs, arts festivals and farmers' markets were starting to wind down, Luis couldn't wait to get back to wandering in the oak dells and laurel groves. Compared to the noisy, demanding crowds at the fairs, the silence of the woods illuminated life in all things. Luis had a habit of bringing home injured or abandoned baby animals for care. Jaime teased him. "I will call you San Luis, Patron Saint of Orphans." Jaime's nickname was prophetic.

As usual, this morning the Zipper was down. "Come back at noon," said the operator, a young, skinny boy in his late teens. The woman who worked at the Brats and Buns stall gave Luis a warm cinnamon bun. She had a stash of "ugly buns" she couldn't sell to the public that she saved for her favorite customers, usually fair rats like Luis. With a cinnamon bun in hand, dripping sweet frosting and butter, he wandered towards the Hall of Flowers, and then the livestock pens, the food carts, the arcade before finally deciding to head back to his mother's stall.

A sizable crowd had gathered in one of the main walkways. Luis inched closer to see what they were all looking at but a wall of people shifted and blocked his view. None of them spoke English or Spanish. Their faces were all very pink and covered in beads of sweat in the hot sun. Their speech was harsh, like shouting almost. Luis thought they must be a tour group. They seemed to be watching some kind of performance. A giant hulk of a man with a head like a white pumpkin backed up into Luis, nearly crushing his foot. "Vorsicht!" shouted the man, spilling his soda. Luis was trapped. There was no way through the heaving mass of people. As the crowd closed in behind him, Luis, who hated tight spaces, began to panic.

Someone weaving through the crowd against the flow moving deliberately with her head held low, caught his eye. The figure stood for a moment. Luis saw that she was a very tall woman with dark skin, at least a head taller than everyone else. Her face was regal and her expression one of fierce resolve. She wore an ankle length dress made from coarse cloth, and Luis saw that she clutched a baby to her chest. She put her head down again and struggled to push through the crowd. He could see by the way she limped that she was injured, and she kept looking over her shoulder. Luis thought she might be one of the performers. Behind her, about fifty feet back, two men moved through the crowd, looking over heads, shoving people out the way as they hunted their prey. Luis guessed it was the woman with the baby. The men who followed her did not look like nice people.

The woman's eyes darted this way and that, searching for a place to hide or escape. Luis knew all the hiding places of the fairgrounds. A little voice in his head told him to help the woman. He tapped her on the arm. She was startled and jumped back. Luis saw that nested in her thick braids coiled about her head, she wore a delicate gold crown.