Pale men smiled and nodded. Atiba bowed. A few women applauded, as if an achievement had been realized. Bidding escalated. The crowd inched forward with pleasure. Atiba held his pose. They began to touch him sensually, first his feet and ankles, then, on the platform, his head, chest, and thighs. All the while Atiba sneered. It wasn’t a broad, welcoming grin, but a slight, meek, concessionary smirk that made them believe what they had once only assumed: He needed them. He wanted them. He was grateful for them. And for that, the bids went higher. Atiba went further in the performance, studying not only their eyes but himself behind their eyes. He was a thing to them, an object of their ownership, and if only he could accept that, they would love him. But he would never accept that. Yet he knew, now, that if he acted like he did, and his vodu favored him, he’d get the same reward.

The winner was a tiny pale man with an even more petite wife. They approached the platform, arm in arm, smiling at each other, sure that their purchase would do them well. They were wrong. Atiba would take their lives in not many days. And he would do so with the blessings and authority of Mawu-Lisa, the Supreme Being. Yet for now, they each took his hand and led him to their cart. He was too kind to chain to the side, the wife protested, so he rode in the back, chained to nothing but himself.

No one knows what happened to the stall. If pale people ever saw the symbols or felt the presence of Death dwelling there. We were simply glad to leave it. Most of us never communed again, but we remembered the womb that birthed us, this part of us, and we told generations stories of our survival. There had been so many of us in the beginning. Then, slowly, our numbers dwindled. Some were tossed into the sea. Some died from fevers. Some took their own lives. Some starved to death. Some went with Death willingly. Some were killed in uprisings. Some were sold at the first port. Some died from the flux. And some perished from a broken heart. Those who made it to the stall were only a fraction of the whole. And, one by one, we were distributed across a strange land to service a strange people. Each day our numbers declined until, one day, Atiba, the last man standing, discovered the secret of prosperity in the land of bondage. He was the last of our womb. He would plant the seeds of our return. In our souls, we remembered him. In our hearts, we praised him. In our spirits, we thanked him.

This was not the end. There would be another day.

This was The Coming.

Preview of Listen to the Lambs

Read on for a sneak peek at Daniel Black’s breathtaking new novel

LISTEN TO THE LAMBS