“Don’t you have a computer?” he asks, genuinely confused.
“I do, or I did.” I let out a delirious laugh. “But apparently Ms. Suga doesn’t like technology.”
I take off my work gloves, throwing them in my book bag with a yawn. The past week of sleepless nights is catching up to me. I turn to say goodbye to find Yusef frozen in place, his mouth gaping, eyes bulging.
“Wh-what did you just say?” he gasps.
“Huh? What I do?”
He gulps, moving closer to me. “How . . . do you know about Ms. Suga,” he whispers.
A sinking feeling invades my chest. “Me? No, how do you know about Ms. Suga?”
“Shhhhhh! Keep your voice down!” he whispers, scanning around us. He grabs my elbows and leads me toward the corner, out of earshot from the rest of the group.
“Who told you about Ms. Suga?”
“Dude, I was totally joking. It’s just some imaginary friend Piper’s cooked up to blame shit on.”
Yusef brings a fist up to his mouth. “Oh shit. I was just messing with you before, about the Hag and stuff. But now . . . now . . .”
He pales, and whatever I had for lunch threatens to come up.
“Yusef . . . what’s going on?” I ask cautiously. “How do you know about Ms. Suga?”
His eyes dart around the ground, like a cat chasing a toy. “Well . . . maybe she overheard it somewhere. Maybe?”
“Would you just tell me what the fuck is going on!”
“Shhhh! Okay. Just . . . not out here. Let’s go back to my house. I have to show you something.”
Yusef’s room is cleaner than I remember, the music still loud. I keep my distance from the wooden bed.
“You know this?” Yusef turns up his music with a smirk. Tupac’s “Hail Mary.”
I narrow my eyes. “Quit stalling. Tell me. How do you know about Ms. Suga?”
He sighs and turns down his music. “Okay. I’m going to tell you . . . but, damn, Cali. You can’t tell anybody this, okay? Like, not even your folks.”
I give him a sharp nod. “Fine.”
He turns up the music again. “Come on. Follow me but keep quiet.”
We slip out of his room, tiptoeing down the hall. I can see the back of Pop-Pop’s head in his recliner, watching some old TV program. Yusef slowly clicks open the first door on the right and ushers me into a cramped room with baby-blue walls. Inside smells like shoe polish mixed with aftershave. A twin hospital bed sits in the middle of the room and I trip over a pair of orthopedic loafers, colliding into a walker.
Pop-Pop’s room. What are we doing in here?
On a narrow nightstand is an old framed picture of a young Black couple, posing in front of Yusef’s house. This must be Pop-Pop and Yusef’s grandma. On the dresser is one of those classic cameras, the kind you need to load film into and have developed.
“Over here,” Yusef says in a low voice, standing by a wall of old black-and-white framed photos, similar to the ones in the hallway. Except these aren’t just of people; they’re of homes, buildings, and skylines. Pop-Pop must have taken all these when he was younger. Yusef points to a photo, a wide shot of a quaint street with beautiful antique mansion-style houses on either side.
“This is Maple Street. Your Maple Street.”
I do a legit double take.
“What? No way,” I laugh, leaning in to spot our house, third one on the right. “Whoa!”
Yusef taps the photo. “The houses on your block were owned by the Peoples family. Joe Peoples and Carmen Peoples. The Peoples had five children: Junior, Red, Norma, Ketch, Jon Jon. Mr. Peoples was a carpenter who loved to play the numbers. Until one day, he actually won the freaking lottery, which like never happens to anyone around here. With all that money, he bought each of his children a home on Maple Street and bought Mrs. Peoples her own bakery across the street from the library. Folks called it the Suga Shop.”
He takes a deep breath, pointing to another picture. A young Black woman, petite, with long thick black hair, stands in front of the shop in a ruffled apron, hands on her hips and a wide proud smile.
Ms. Suga . . .
“No,” I gasp, recoiling.
Yusef nods. “She was known for making some of the best pies in the state.”
“Wh-what happened to them?”
He takes a deep breath. “They say that Mr. Peoples died in some type of strange car accident. With him gone, all these white developers were lining up, trying to buy the houses from Ms. Suga, but she refused. One by one, three of the Peoples children ended up dying in some strange accident. Soon after . . . all these rumors started that the family actually got their money from selling drugs and the youngest son, Jon Jon, was going around, sneaking into people’s houses and touching little kids. Folks stopped going to the bakery. The Wood gave Ms. Suga the cold shoulder. Then, after Devil’s Night, after they found Seth Reed . . . some folks from the Wood . . . they cornered Jon Jon and set his house on fire. Ms. Suga, living next door, ran inside to save him. They never came out. Burned alive in the house . . . right next to yours.”
My knees give in and I fall back on Pop-Pop’s bed before shooting back up quick, dusting my jeans.
“Shit,” I mumble. “The boarded-up house!”
Yusef struggles to continue the story. “But . . . it turned out all them kids were lying. Said some Russo mobsters paid them to make it all up. Jon Jon never touched any of them kids. But it was too late. Damage was already done.”
“That’s insane! They didn’t just . . . wait, did you say ‘Russo’?”
“Yeah. They used to run this city.”
Still do, I think. Damn, this is a real-life nightmare.
“So, no one went to the police and told them that the kids were lying?”
He shook his head. “If anyone did . . . everyone in the Wood would’ve been up at Big Ville. So . . . there’s a silent pact around here. Folks taking what they know to their graves. Only reason I know . . . well, ’cause . . . Pop-Pop.”
I blink, realization sinking in. “No. Dude . . . he didn’t.”
Yusef rushes to explain. “He thought he was doing the right thing, you know? Thought he was protecting kids!”
The information eating me alive, I choke back a sob. That poor family. Yusef crosses the room.
“Anyway, after the house burnt up, they boarded it up, making it look like the others, so no one would ever know.”
My jaw hangs open. “Oh God,” I gasp, squeezing my eyes shut, thinking of what Erika said. How bodies were still in homes, left to rot forever.
“Folks been trying to ease the pain of their guilt for what they did ever since . . . in any way they can.”
Drugs. That’s what he means. It’s why it hit this area so hard. And even after all that, most of the folks from the Wood still found themselves in Big Ville.
Speechless, I try to collect my thoughts. Because there has to be some reasonable explanation how Piper would know all this. “Someone at school must have told Piper about Ms. Suga.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “But . . . it’s said that Ms. Suga has haunted all the homes on Maple Street ever since. That she was so angry about losing her family that she turned into the Hag. And if you talk bad about Ms. Suga or her children, she’ll haunt you in your dreams. No one even walks down that street, there’s been so many bodies found over the years. Folks are shook. Cali, if Ms. Suga is really haunting your house, you gotta be careful. She’s out for blood.”