City of Souls

“Mr. Wells, are you paying attention?” Porter nodded his head, continued writing down his physics notes. He was only half paying attention, though. Porter was at school, yes, but his mind seemed to be somewhere else. He mindlessly chewed on the eraser of his pencil. “Mr. Wells, class is over. It let out more than three minutes ago.”

Porter blinked and nodded slowly. He removed the pencil from his mouth and put his belongings away. “Do we have any homework for tonight?” Mrs. Tupplemen frowned and sighed at Porter.

“I thought you told me that you were paying attention,” she mused. Porter parted his lips to speak, but Mrs. Tupplemen put her palm out and shook her head. “No, you don’t have homework tonight. But if you’d like to, you could practice your physics. Practice makes perfect, Porter.”

“I know,” he emitted. He swung his book bag over his shoulder, half zipped up and half organized, and walked out of her classroom. The halls were empty, but that was expected.

Porter was slacking, he knew. But he hadn’t returned from his outing with those of Miningville until late Sunday night and even then, he’d stayed up far longer than he should have. Porter looked up at the clock hanging slightly crooked next to Mrs. Tupplemen’s room door, reading the time, 2:10 pm. He shrugged his shoulders and went straight to his locker; school would be letting out in less than twenty minutes.

“32, 40, 2,” Porter said to himself, twisting the dial to the designated numbers until it opened. Without looking at it, Porter took the small mirror from the door of his locker, setting it face down on the shelf. He proceeded to getting the rest of the things from his book bag, carelessly adding his box of granola bars, extra pencils, and his math book to the mess. He closed his locker and began down the hallway before he sat down on one of the benches in the hallway.

When the bell, a shrilling chime, rung, Porter stood up and waited by the door for Nate and Casper. Nate was the first to show. He swung his arm around Porter’s shoulder, saying, “Dude, where were you this weekend? I stopped by your house yesterday, but the only people that were there were your mom and a bunch of jovial.”

“I took a few trips to the Silver Pioneer. Where’s Casper?”

Nate shrugged, pushed the door open. “From what I know, he’s sick. He mentioned something about eating raw shrimp and bake beans and throwing up.”

“He’s a pansy,” Porter laughed. “Who eats shrimp and bake beans together in the first place?”

“I don’t know. You know how the jovial are—they’re weird!” Nate pointed out. “Are we still heading to my house? My mother wants to make you a batch of snicker doodle cookies and if you don’t come, she won’t make them.”

Porter gripped the straps of his book bag and kept walking down the sidewalk beside Nate. “Nathaniel Lowe, you are simply being selfish,” he joked. “Yeah, I’m coming. I have nothing better to do and I sense that Howard Oaks is going to be at my house again.”

Nate didn’t live very far from the school. He lived a few streets down, next to Mayor Flicker’s family. Nate lived on Corcoast Street to be exact. The walk there was practically silent, except for the exchanging of a little bit of small talk. When the two arrived at the Lowe household, Nate’s mother was standing just outside of the door, a grin on her face.

She stopped Porter and Nate, grabbing Porter’s cheeks. “You’re beginning to lose all of your baby fat! Is that mother of yours feeding you well?”

Porter narrowed his eyes and placed his hands on her wrists, removing her hands from his face. “Yes, Mrs. Lowe. She gives me dinner every night. You have nothing to worry about. How about those snicker doodle cookies?”

“Nathaniel, you told? I thought I said it was meant to be a surprise!” she exclaimed. She ran a hand through her blonde hair and sighed. “I’ll make the cookies, though. Go inside, boys.”

Mrs. Lowe was different. Porter could never figure out if she was a jovial or a disconsolate, because one minute the woman was smiling and the other minute she was being dark and gloomy. Whatever it is, Porter decided, the woman was cooler than his disconsolate mother.

While Mrs. Lowe baked cookies in the kitchen, the two teenagers went up to Nate’s room in the attic. They closed the room door, and shed their book bags and jackets before settling on the floor. After a few minutes of picking at the loose seams in the carpet, Nate asked, “What were you doing at Silver Pioneer anyway?”

“The first time I visited it this weekend, I was just writing a descriptive piece, y’know?”

“Yeah, I understand. You’re lame like that.”

“Mhm,” Porter said, nodding. “The second time, I was showing the place to a view Miningville visitors. They said something about bad dreams and I wanted to show them what I saw.” Nate’s brow was furrowed and he knew he had to explain. “I saw myself in the long mirror of Silver Pioneer, but I was an old man.”

Nate laughed and stood up to retrieve his camera from his book shelf. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Porter. Are you sure they weren’t hallucinations? We’ve been to that place almost ten times and never saw anything like that. Are you sure it wasn’t just the people of Miningville playing mind games?”

“I’m sure, Nate. I’ve never lied to you and I’m not going to lie to you know. But I know what I saw.” Nate shrugged, still unconvinced.

“Porter, I can understand you and those people having bad dreams because I get them, too, but saying that the Silver Pioneer is haunted?” Nate shook his head. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“Oh, I forgot,” Porter said. “You have to see it to believe it. I can show you, Nate. I can show you what I saw.” Nate shrugged and angled his camera toward Porter. “You want me to say it on camera?” Nate nodded and pressed start. “The mirror of Silver Pioneer shows us the reflection of our soul.”