Creatures of Passage. Morowa Yejidé

       Critical Praise for Time of the Locust by Morowa Yejidé

      “Deftly brings together the fantastic and realistic … and spins them with gold and possibility.”

      —Washington Post

      “Yejidé is poised to make her mark with a novel that might be described as one of family connection—but encompasses so much more … When the father, Horus, develops supernatural abilities and connects with his son, strange and powerful things happen, but the focus is less on fantasy than on the fantastic power of love to bind and protect us.”

      —Washingtonian

      “At times almost mystical in its intensity, Yejidé’s prose brings lyricism to her dark subject matter and unhappy characters, eventually introducing a kind of magical restoration to her shattered fictional family.”

      —Kirkus Reviews

      “Beautiful prose conveys the sadness and fractured selves of these characters, who are both strong and fragile … The novel is challenging and memorable.”

      —Publishers Weekly

      “There are characters who hook you from the second you meet them on the page. Sephiri, the autistic boy at the heart of Time of the Locust is one of them. In this moving debut, author Morowa Yejidé creates a protagonist who finds comfort in an imaginary world filled with sea creatures that help him cope with the ‘real world.’”

      —Essence

      “A superb debut work of magic realism and finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, this is the book for you, your friends, and your book club.”

      —Ebony

      “We have needed storytellers to remind us of our humanity and our interconnectedness and stories that drill down to what we struggle with, often in silence. Welcome Morowa Yejidé, whose exquisitely written and page-turning novel, Time of the Locust, reminds of who we truly are.”

      —Asha Bandele, author of Daughter

      “A unique and astounding debut.”

      —Lalita Tademy, best-selling author of Cane River

      “A stunning, magical novel about the power of love between an imprisoned father and an autistic son. Original, compelling, Yejidé explores the human psyche in a dreamscape world.”

      —Jewell Parker Rhodes, author of Douglass’ Women

      “Arrayed against seven kinds of imprisonment—autism, gluttony, self-hate, inanition, racism, vengefulness, and a fiendish species of incarceration in a supermax prison—in this auspicious debut novel, stands the volitional force of unfettered love. Morowa Yejidé’s depiction of the inner world of the parents of an autistic child (the father unfairly imprisoned and the mother sagging under the load of single parentage) is rendered with compassionate aplomb; her brilliant depiction of the mental weather of their autistic son is matchless. Time of the Locust is a rich and rewarding story of redemption for those who believe, as the poet Richard Lovelace wrote, ‘Stone walls do not a prison make.’”

      —J. Michael Lennon, author of Norman Mailer: A Double Life

      “Time of the Locust is a brave and mesmerizing journey into the mysteries of autism, solitary confinement, and inner struggle told with dazzling imagery and passion. In this luminous first novel, the crossroads between the dream world and the physical world is a place where physical chains are of no consequence. A soaring odyssey of the human spirit.”

      —Kaylie Jones, author of The Anger Meridian

      CREATURES

      OF

      PASSAGE

      CREATURES

      OF

      PASSAGE

      MOROWA YEJIDÉ

      This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Published by Akashic Books

      ©2021 Morowa Yejidé

      ISBN: 978-1-61775-876-8; e-ISBN: 978-1-61775-888-1

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936133

      All rights reserved

      First printing

      Akashic Books

      Brooklyn, New York

      Twitter: @AkashicBooks

      Facebook: AkashicBooks

      E-mail: [email protected]

      Website: www.akashicbooks.com

      For the living and the dead.And those on their way to one or the other.

      CONTENTS

       PASSAGE I: MOVING THROUGH SPACES

       PASSAGE II: STAYING IN ONE PLACE

       PASSAGE III: RESIGNING LIFE TO ANOTHER

       PASSAGE IV: SURRENDERING ONE’S LIFE

       PASSAGE V: ENTERING THE VOID

      Life is a shadow and a mist that passes quickly by and is no more. —Madagascan proverb

      PASSAGE I

      MOVING THROUGH SPACES

      FERRYMAN

       The goddess Nephthys ferried lost souls through the dark currents of the Great Mystery, from one isle of existence to another and out to the far reaches of fate, all the while filled with a profound sadness for her brother, the murdered god Osiris, whose power was taken by dividing him into pieces …

      Nephthys Kinwell was not a savior of souls. That was God’s charge. Or maybe the trade of the Devil. But she did ferry souls from one quadrant to another, and over the streets that now covered the prehistoric marshes of the capital of the territories. There was a certain geography to it all, she’d learned. To the win lose draw of lives. For Nephthys Kinwell knew—as all wandering hearts do—that it was not enough to know where things happened in the lines and circles of human lives, but why, since the reasons for happenings were buried much deeper than the happenings themselves. So she never had to look for the signs omens bones of creatures of passage. They found her.

      The kingdoms of the land that together made the united territories had just turned two hundred years old the summer before, a fledgling in the long line of empires risen and fallen. But in 1977 Anacostia was still the New World, an isle of blood and desire. It was the capital’s wild child east of a river that bore its name, a place where much was yet discovered. Anything was possible in that easternmost quadrant, where all things lived and died on the edges of time and space and meaning. It was a realm of contradictions, an undulating landscape of pristine land and dirty water, of breathtaking hills and decimated valleys. Crab apple and cherry trees flourished in the yards of abandoned houses and centuries-old oaks flanked run-down corner stores. Pushers stood watch for cars when little kids were crossing the