1809. The Mount Meru volcano erupts in the middle of a Chagga sacrificial ritual to end the great drought. About a dozen people die in fires from a series of fast moving lava flows that make contact with Chagga banana-leaf roof huts. The blame falls on the Paramount Chief for stubbornly carrying on the ritual on the foothills of Mount Meru. The god Ruwa is angry about lives lost and unleashes a curse on this Bantu tribe of East Africa. The Evil Shadowy Figure is born. This havoc wreaking spirit from the depths of the netherworld possesses the spirits of the victims of the fires. Prophecy has it that the day an extraterrestrial falls from the sky, the tribe can perform a ritual to end the supernatural curse on them and free the spirits from the Evil Shadowy Figure.

December 2010. Nearly two hundred-years later, the curse of the Evil Shadowy Figure still plagues the Chagga that have members residing on the foothills of Mount Meru, where they grow Arabica coffee, bananas, and medicinal herbs that they sell at local markets in Arusha.

In a far-off galaxy, a Brozian cargo vessel is enroute to Vlar Station, a remote trading port, where the insectoid smugglers plan to sell a female Catusapien in their captivity. When the spaceship slips into a wormhole, turbulence allows the Catusapien to escape her cell. The ship spits out near Earth into the Milky Way Galaxy. The Catusapien yanks out some wires behind a wall panel in the engineering area before fleeing in an escape pod.

Originally from Buffalo, New York, Allison Banes, a pretty twenty-eight year old woman with brown-hair and eyes, slim, very independent and an aspiring primatologist, is in Tanzania working on a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Cornell University of Ithaca, New York. While conducting her PhD dissertation research in behavioral ecology of black-and-white colobus monkeys in the Mount Meru Forest Reserve of Arusha National Park, Allison sees the Brozian spaceship explode in mid-air and crash land. Nearby the crash site, the Catusapian crawls out of the escape pod, suffering from something like jet lag, her body has trouble breathing the air on the Earth. Allison finds the half-feline half-human extraterrestrial asleep. Overtaken by this discovery, she carries the alien off to her Honda Odyssey minivan, taking her home with her for observation. She even names her Kitty so if anyone hears her call out to her, they think she has a cat.

Park Ranger Paulina Mongella discovers the spaceship crash and escape pod, tells her boss Geoffrey Mkama, who then informs his Tanzania National Parks Authority supervisor. The heads of TANAPA, confiscate the escape pod for study and research. Fast forward to months later, they decipher the aircraft as the property of an insectoid alien race. The authorities never learn about the Catusapian, nor ever hear about her. For the months that follow, they discreetly search East Africa for an insectoid being that they never find. So, the case of the spaceship crash closes.

The alien’s arrival unleashes the spirit of Sayida Jaquier, a victim of the volcanic fires of that hundreds year old tragedy and whose soul is under the control of the Evil Shadowy Figure. Allison Banes falls victim to the Evil Shadowy Figure for harboring the Catusapien alien, who then retreats to the forest surrounding Lake Duluti. Her friend Azita Hussein, a medical internist at the medical clinic GoHealth Walk-In Urgent Care in Tanzania, comes into the story as all business. She finds Allison’s small field notebook documenting the alien from outer space and goes on a search for the alien and for answers to Allison’s questionable death of what appears to be a heart attack. These events change Azita, who finally opens herself up to the people of Africa.

After spearfishing on Christmas Eve, Geoffrey’s 11-year-old daughter Cassidy Mkama, sees the alien and tells her friend Laila Diwani, a Chagga member who tells the tribe’s Paramount Chief, Anton Naruma. Chief Naruma already detects a disturbance in the supernatural world since recently having a dream with the Evil Shadow Figure. Additionally, Sayida Jaquier is the six times great-grand-aunt of Laila, who must participate in the ritual to set her soul free and end the curse on the Chagga. Though Laila has no desire to be a Chagga, her key role in this will inevitably change the way she feels about being Chagga.