Excerpt from Yonder by Jabari Asim, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Cato, talk to God for us this morning. Say something. Put your heart behind it," he urged, opening and closing his fists as if he couldn't wait to hit someone.

I shut my eyes, thought of Iris. "Ancestors," I said. "Make us thankful."

It was bitterness in my mouth. But I meant every word.

Cupid put himself between the drinking gourds and us. "Niggas shouldn't be thirsty before doing a lick of work," he said.

That's when William walked up to him, got close to his face. Cupid had beaten every man in the quarters except him, whom he'd never even challenged. William had saved a young Thief from a runaway horse, and ever since then Greene had taken kindly to him—if you could call it that. Behind William's back, Cupid would tell us he spared him because he didn't want to bring Greene's anger down on himself.

But we all knew the real reason: Cupid was scared of him. Strong, fast, and tireless, William was never afraid.

"Niggas might not be thirsty," he said, "but I sure am."

He stepped past Cupid, dipped the gourd in the trough, and sipped slowly, like he was born a Thief in the big house instead of one of us. Like he had a whole day of leisure before him, munching pecans and sipping sweet tea on the veranda. If I were to note a change in the air at Placid Hall, a point in time when our story showed signs of becoming something thrilling and dangerous and entirely new, I would say it began at that moment. Cupid glared and spat but said not a word. I watched him watching William and it seemed clear that he would give up all he had just for a chance to do his rival in. Cupid turned and caught me looking. He rushed toward me, shaking his fist. I stepped back and gave him room.

"You one sad lump of nigga," he said. "Still lovesick over some wench who's dust by now. What? You got something to say? This is probably a piece of her right here." He picked up a clod of dirt and threw it at Nila. It struck her on the head, sending her down to one knee. She rubbed her temple and said nothing.

Neither did I. I had once responded to Cupid's teasing and paid a terrible price for my foolishness.

"You've been plowing the same row your whole life," Cupid went on. "Lots of places to sow a seed. But I guess it don't matter when you got a broken blade."

Still looking at me, he spoke to Nila. "Get up from there. Don't make me get after you so early. We got all day for that."

Behind him, William hung the gourd above the trough. He stared at Cupid's back without blinking, as if he could burn a hole in him just by looking.

Civility. Even now I marvel at the notion.

William

Cannonball Greene thought of himself as a thinker, a man of letters like the rebels who founded the country. In truth he was a man with too much money, too much land, and too much idle time. Twelve house servants waited on him and his family in the big house at Placid Hall, while another seventy worked on the surrounding lands. With so many Stolen people at his beck and call, he was able to devote long days to the study of Africans in America. Niggerology, he said, was an exact and demanding science.

The captives at Two Forks and Pleasant Grove were mostly field hands who tended his wheat, corn, and tobacco. His most skilled workers, confined to Placid Hall, included bricklayers, carpenters, tailors, seamstresses, and Silent Mary, a cook whose biscuits were the envy of the county. Their talents made Greene's household beautiful. They also made him money when he rented them out to neighboring planters.

Cato and I were trained as carpenters, and others in my company included Cupid and Milton, bricklayers both; Little Zander, a blacksmith's apprentice; and Double Sam, a handler of horses. We found ourselves banded together whenever Greene pulled us from our regular jobs and assigned us other chores. Certain qualities he claimed to identify in us led to our unhappy service in what he proudly called experiments. We knew from our work for other Thieves that they laughed at these projects and called them Cannonball's Follies.

From YONDER: A Novel by Jabari Asim. Copyright © 2022 by Jabari Asim. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.