When We Were Birds

The novel follows two protagonists whose lives converge at Fidelis, a 19th-century cemetery in the city of Port Angeles. Their alternating stories trace Yejide St. Bernard, heir to a matrilineal family charged with tending the dead, and Darwin, a young man who breaks a sacred vow to take a gravedigging job that entangles him in something far darker than burial.

The novel opens with a myth told by Granny Catherine to young Yejide. After war devastates the mountain of Morne Marie, the wisest birds, the green parrots, split in two: One group stays small and green, while the other transforms into corbeaux, carrion birds that consume the dead so their souls can be released. Catherine whispers that their family inherits the corbeaux's role as intermediaries between the living and the dead. "We remember," she says.

Darwin, a young Rastafarian raised by his mother, Janaya, a seamstress in rural Wharton, travels to Port Angeles to work as a gravedigger. As a Nazarite, bound by a biblical vow of separation, he is forbidden from cutting his hair or going near the dead. Desperate for work, he takes the only job available. Janaya tells him that if he leaves, he cannot come back. The night before his departure, Darwin cuts his dreadlocks with blunt scissors, severing 25 years of identity.

At Fidelis, Darwin endures hazing from the crew before meeting Errol, a bowlegged foreman with one milky eye, who hands him the only set of worker keys. He learns from Shirley, the records clerk. His first burial is for Emily Julius, an elderly woman. After the funeral, Errol hands Darwin extra cash. That evening, Darwin finds the woman's husband, Beresford Julius, still sitting by the grave. The old man confesses he has a son he barely knows, and Darwin, who knows nothing of his own absent father, is shaken. He leaves the gate unchained so Mr. Julius can stay.

On Morne Marie, Yejide lies in bed during a three-day storm, waiting for her dying mother, Petronella, to call for her. Petronella retreated into grief after her twin sister Geraldine died the previous year, refusing to engage with Yejide or the family's work of tending the dead. Yejide's closest bond is with Seema, whose family has served the household for generations; Seema is her confidante and lover.

When Petronella finally summons Yejide, their encounter takes place in a liminal space between life and death. Petronella explains that the St. Bernard women descend from Maman, an enslaved African woman who appeared on the Morne Marie estate, freed the dead, and burned the plantation house without fire. Each generation inherits the ability to tend the dead; in exchange, the dead protect the family. Petronella teaches Yejide to feel the ancestral energy, then pushes her into the realm of the dead.

Overwhelmed by centuries of suffering, Yejide finds herself at the gates of Fidelis. Through the sensory storm, she perceives a single figure: a man, tall and green with life, radiating warmth amid the dead. She wakes with Petronella's body shrouded beside her and tells Seema she saw a man in a graveyard.

Darwin, meanwhile, notices anomalies at the cemetery: graves freshly turned when they should be settled, a dreadlocked figure who vanishes among the headstones. One evening, a woman in white materializes at the gate during a sudden storm, gripping the bars with fury strong enough to pin him in place. She vanishes, and the city outside shows no sign anything happened.

After Petronella's death, Yejide sees a shadow of mortality around every living person. Moths blanket the house and lift only when the body is carried away. The household looks to her as the new matriarch. When she visits Fidelis to arrange the burial, she and Darwin recognize each other from the storm. She tells him her name and says that what she saw in him made her know she would come back.

Soon after, police investigate Mr. Julius's disappearance. Darwin lies to protect himself, then spots Mr. Julius's gold ring on McIntosh, one of the gravediggers, and realizes the crew robbed and likely killed the old man. That night, Errol reveals the full scope of his operation: The extra cash Darwin has been accepting was always his cut of a body-disposal ring. Errol, known as "Sweeper," is paid to make bodies disappear inside Fidelis. Darwin is forced to dig up a fresh coffin, watch crew member Jamesy strip the corpse of valuables, and help lower an unknown body into the grave.

On All Saints' Eve, Yejide leads a candle-lighting wake for Petronella. The household recounts each foremother's death-story, and Mr. Homer, a household elder, beats a drum that calls a procession of villagers up the hill. Ancestral spirits emerge from the forest, and finally Petronella, barely formed and birdlike. Yejide sings a ritual song that restores her mother's human shape, but Petronella's parting words are bitter: "You shoulda run. Take your man. Make your own damn life." The dead women fold into corbeaux and take to the sky, leaving a final whispered instruction: "Let the dead bury the dead."

That same evening, Darwin encounters the dreadlocked figure near an old tomb. The man has Darwin's face: It is Levi, his father, who died shortly after arriving in Port Angeles in 1998 and whose bones lie somewhere in Fidelis among the unclaimed dead. Darwin rages, then confides everything. Before parting, he tells Levi that Janaya never stopped looking for him.

Yejide picks Darwin up and drives into the mountains, revealing the full family history. He recognizes her house from his dreams. They become lovers and plan to flee together. But returning to the city, Darwin is beaten by men connected to Errol's network, searching for the cemetery keys he left with Yejide. Battered, he digs Petronella's grave alone when the crew refuses to help, then presses the keys into Yejide's hand at the graveside and whispers his plan: Meet at the St. Bernard plot at dawn.

That night, Darwin chains himself inside Fidelis, but Errol has his own key. The crew hunts him through the dark cemetery as a storm rises. Remembering Janaya's lesson about David and Goliath, Darwin faces Errol with a blade, and both men wound each other badly. Meanwhile, Seema confronts Yejide about abandoning her legacy and their relationship, but Yejide senses Darwin's danger and races to the cemetery.

She finds both men bleeding in the flood. Figures emerge by the hundreds: the spirits of those Errol buried illegally. Yejide opens herself to them, acknowledging each one. The spirits grow calm, then speak with one voice: "Give us the man." Levi steps forward: "Not the gatekeeper. The other one. Give us the sweeper." The dead swarm Errol, and his screams are swallowed by the storm. Dawn breaks as rain washes over Yejide.

Darwin heals at the house on Morne Marie. When he recovers, he and Yejide return to Fidelis and visit three graves: Mrs. Julius's, where Darwin has placed a new headstone as atonement; Petronella's, where Yejide lays flowers; and a small plot where Darwin has arranged a marker for his father, Carlton Levi Springer, inscribed "Ever Faithful."

In a closing letter to Janaya, Darwin tells her that her husband never abandoned them: He died in Port Angeles shortly after arriving. "He never leave us, Ma," he writes. "And I never leave you." He signs with his full name: Emmanuel.