“The park used to be full of people,” Erika says. “Having cookouts and family reunions. At night, the place was like a parking lot. Folks flossing in their whips and new fits. Just kicking it and vibing to music.”
“My dad used to deejay from the truck,” Yusef adds, pointing a thumb over his shoulder to his rust bucket. “Had the turntables set up in the bed. I came here once with him. I was real little, but I remember.”
“My pops used to have this fly-ass aqua-blue Cadillac with white leather seats and chrome rims,” Erika laughs, shaking her head. “Mom said he looked like a can of Ajax.”
“Then what happened?” I ask.
Erika’s face darkens as she stuffs her hands into her jacket pockets.
“Them Sterling Laws, that’s what happened,” she grumbles. “Started locking everyone up until folks were afraid to walk outside, the city coming up with any law you can think of just to arrest you for breathing.”
Yusef tenses beside me, staring at the water.
“Damn. That . . . sucks,” I mumble.
We fall into a heavy silence. I twist a finger around a strand of hair, wishing I had something profound or comforting to say.
“Welp. Excuse me, kids,” Erika says, hopping to her feet. She dusts herself off and walks in the direction of the tall grass by the shore.
“What’s she up to,” I chuckle. “Is she about to pee in a river?”
Yusef shakes his head. “Nah. Probably gonna go smoke.”
“Really?” I say, fast. Maybe a little too fast, as I whip in her direction, about to follow, but stop, cocking my head back at Yusef. “Wait a minute, why are you okay with Erika smoking?”
Yusef purses his lips.
“Don’t get it twisted, I still hate that shit,” he says, then sighs. “But Erika, well, she hasn’t had it easy. Almost her entire family is up at Big Ville. It’s just her and her grandma left and they barely making it on grand’s Social Security. So, guess I make some exceptions.”
“Oh,” I say, staring in the direction she disappeared.
“Guess we . . . kinda understand each other in that way. Our family trees got hacked to shrubs. Drugs, Sterling Laws, not to mention the fires. The Wood can’t seem to catch a break.”
“So why don’t you leave? Go start somewhere fresh.”
He shakes his head. “I ain’t leaving until my family gets out. Don’t want them coming back to a place full of strangers.”
The schematics of the New Cedarville come to mind. I don’t know why I can’t tell him about what I saw, what they’re cooking up. Maybe because I’m afraid of the never-ending questions to follow that I have no real answers for. Maybe because I feel guilty being a part of the very people that they plan to replace him and his family with.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I say. “This is dope.”
He smiles. “I wanted to bring you here the first day I met you.”
I gulp. “Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, what kind of Cali girl would you be without a beach?”
Yusef’s softening eyes sparkle in the moonlight, a crackling flame.
I clear my throat and divert my gaze. “Uh, so, you never said what you’re going to be for Halloween.”
He chuckles. “Oh naw, we were just joking about all that. No one does shit on Halloween.”
“Why?”
“’Cause of the fires,” Erika says, emerging from the grass with a slow stroll, smelling sweet and tangy.
“What fires?”
Yusef winces, debating something. This isn’t the first time someone has mentioned “the fires” but they never explain further. What are they not telling me?
Erika plops down beside me. “Come on, Yuey. She needs to know.”
Yusef rest his chin on his knee, staring at the sand. “All right, the story goes like this: a long time ago—”
“Not THAT long ago. Keep it real!”
Yusef rolls his eyes. “Fine. Back, like, thirty-something years ago, after the riots and the recession, all the abandoned houses used to be filled with squatters. Homeless people. Or drug addicts . . . still strung out.”
His eyes toggle to Erika and back. Erika stares down, digging her heels into the sand.
“They weren’t . . . in they right mind, you feel me?” he continues. “Anyway, one Halloween, some little white kid, Seth Reed, got separated from his friends, stumbled his way into Maplewood. He walked up to one of them abandoned houses, I guess maybe to ask for directions. . . .” He takes a deep breath. “They found his body the next day. Don’t even want to talk about what he went through.”
“Shit,” I gasp.
“The city came down hard on the Wood; some say his death was the beginning of the end. After that, the tradition goes that every year, on the night before Halloween, folks set fires to the abandoned houses to smoke out any squatters, keeping the streets safe for trick-or-treaters. They called it Devil’s Night, because the way the Wood was burning, looked like hell itself.”
“But they didn’t always smoke them out,” Erika adds, her voice toneless. “Some people died in them fires, too high to notice the smoke. They say some of the burnt-down houses still got bodies in them.”
My mouth drops. “Holy shit! That’s arson. That’s . . . murder! How could any of this be okay?”
“’Cause they think they doing right, keeping kids safe,” Yusef says. “And no one around here is gonna snitch. Problem is, some of them fires would burn out of control, spread to regular lived-in houses, and then folks lose everything they own. No way to rebuild when they don’t have money to start with.”
I think of the house across the street and shiver. “Wait, who was setting the fires?”
Yusef palms his fist, blinking away. “Um, no one really knows.”
“Why doesn’t the police stop them?” I ask, eager to understand. “Or the fire department.”
“You expect them to care about the Wood,” Erika scoffs. “Girl, bye. They be the ones handing out the gas cans and matches.”
“That ain’t nothing but a rumor,” Yusef jumps in.
“Bruh, my cousin saw them!”
“Whatever,” Yusef grumbles. “But that’s why no one goes anywhere on Halloween. Everyone’s home, protecting their house. My uncle still sits outside, one hand on his gun, the other on a watering hose.”
I rub my temples. Can’t believe I live in a town that doesn’t celebrate Halloween. But then again, that almost falls right in line with the rest of the madness in Cedarville.
“That’s insane,” I mumble. “And this still happens today?”
“Sometimes,” Erika spat. “There just ain’t enough people left in the Wood to burn.”
I lean away, feeling the heated anger radiating off her skin. Erika hops to her feet and strolls back to the car. Speechless, I look at Yusef, and he only shakes his head.
“The fires scare her. Real talk, they scare everybody. ’Cause if you lose your house, there ain’t nowhere to go.”
Nowhere to go. Does the Foundation know that? I rub my arms, a chill sweeping in.
“You cold?” Yusef asks.