City of Souls

Maybe Porter should have just gone home. Perhaps it wasn’t a great idea to skip school the following morning and visit the Silver Pioneer with Nate. Despite that, the two were walking down Crow Street, less than ten feet from where the abandoned building sat. “I still think you’re crazy,” Nate said.

“And I still think that you’re just too proud to believe me,” Porter retorted. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants and picked up his pace.

Nate scoffed, kicked a rock. “Get your drawers out of your behind. I don’t care for your attitude, Porter. Cyrus might tolerate it, but I don’t. Get it together.” Porter sighed, knowing that Nate was right and that he was acting like a prick. He stopped just in front of the pub as he waited for Nate to catch up, inhaling and exhaling softly. “Alright, now, we’re going to go in here and I’m going to prove what you saw. Maybe you saw your own face and realized how scary you looked.”

He shrugged and pushed the doors opened, catching a whiff of the Silver Pioneer’s scent—a mixture of rotting wood and mothballs. “Go ahead, Nate, start up your little camera. Get ready for your pants to scared off.” Nate calmly obliged and turned his camera on, ready to see some action.

Nate silently surveyed the place that he, Porter, and Cyrus would sometimes hang out at. “I don’t see anything that would frighten me.”

“You’re not even a foot away from the door, smart one. How are you every going to see anything standing right there?” But Porter didn’t blame him. The place was caked in cobwebs, and decorated in tattered wood and broken bottles. He gestured for Nate to follow him, walking over to the booth across from the mirror.

Nate stopped just in front of the mirror, looking at it through his camera lens. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the mirror said to reflect souls. It’s got a sleek and slim frame, and quite marvelous clarity. But wait—there’s more!” Nate laughed at himself, facing the camera toward the floor. He was still laughing and Porter was looking at him, confused. Porter didn’t see anything comical in the endeavor and wished that Nate would be a little less childish while they were there.

“Nate,” Porter snapped. “Get it together. It couldn’t possibly be that funny to you.”

“It obviously—what the heck is that?” Porter looked over to the mirror instinctively in response to his friend’s outburst. He wasn’t startled; he’d seen the same wispy figure every time. “Porter, what it is that?”

“Do you believe me now?”

Nate was still awestruck, disbelieving. “Is this like a hologram or something? What kind of person would play a trick like this?”

“Do you believe me now?” Porter asked, a second time. “This whole time, you’ve been trying to convince me that I’m crazy, but now you see it. I’m not crazy, Nate.”

“Nah, man, I think we’re both crazy. That’s my only conclusion. I cannot think of any other logical reason as to why we’d be seeing anything. We might as well turn ourselves into the asylum downtown. Your friends from Miningville should do the same, too. Porter, I think we’re all crazy.”

Porter shook his head. He refused to believe that he was crazy. He wasn’t crazy, he told himself. “Maybe we’re just special, Nate. Did you think of that?”

“Porter Wells, you are—you are something. My mom always told me, ‘Don’t let the denial get to your head. Accept things as they are.’ And Porter, you’ve got to accept this. We’re crazy. It’s not our faults, but we’re crazy. We’re crazy, we’re crazy—”

Porter grabbed Nathaniel by his shoulders and shook him. “Get it together, Nathaniel! We’re perfectly fine, okay? I mean, your mother is a wise woman, but we’re not crazy. We’re not in denial. We’re perfectly fine the way we are. Just wait until we tell Casper—”

“We’re not telling Casper anything. He can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life. We’ve just got to—we’ve just got to stick together. We’ve got to keep our cool. Yeah, that’s it. We’ve got to keep our cool.”

“See,” Porter said. “It’s not that hard.”



“Porter, please, stay for dinner. I fried tilapia and French fries.” He looked toward Nate, who was just nodding his head pleadingly behind his mother. Mrs. Lowe just smiled sweetly at Porter, begging him with her eyes. "I know how much you like fried fish."

"If you insist, Mrs. Lowe. I'll stay. Just give me a few seconds to call my mother and tell her not to save me any food." Porter excused himself just as he promised and called his mother, returning about two minutes later.

Mrs. Lowe smiled and disappeared into the kitchen to fix plates. "Porter, my mom's been spazzing out lately. This morning she awoke screaming, pleading someone to spare her life. I don't know what it is, but I'm tempted to tell the officials because—"

"Tell the officials what?" Mrs. Lowe asked, holding a tray of three plates in her hand.

"While Porter and I were out earlier, we saw a few trees burning. I thought of telling them about it, but I'm sure that they'll figure out on their own," Nate said. Porter nodded as convincingly as he could and the three of them sat down to eat.