Mirror Mystery

Everything happens for a reason.

Huh. Says the people whose happenings are happening happily.

I can't think of the "reason" why I was driving through the back roads of an endless, marshy bayou. I've always lived in the great state of Louisiana, but not all the way out here. And certainly not in the shack I pulled up to that my renters called "a charming, cozy home."

I would never have chosen this life for myself, but when you're a recently divorced man whose ex-wife took everything, you have to take what you can get, even if it's in the middle of a swamp.

She honestly might have gotten away with the affair if it were not for my background as an investigative journalist. I knew what to look for, the right questions to ask, the right places to go. She was very careful, too careful, causing my suspicion to grow. And once my inquisitive nature got the better of me, I discovered the truth.

I unloaded what little I had into the one-room "home" and looked around my pathetic living space. She had taken my old mattress, so I had nowhere to sleep. My broken armchair would have to do, but at any moment it could collapse under the weight of my sorrow. The bathroom didn't even have a mirror, which I suppose was good, that way I didn't have to see the mess of what my life had become.

But I couldn't live like this forever. I searched for secondhand stores and found a local thrift shop not far from me.

I grabbed a small cart near the entrance and perused the aisles of worn clothes and dusty appliances that had become outdated decades ago. As I rounded the corner at the back of the store I came across a mirror leaning up against the wall. I saw no price tag on it so I leaned in for a closer look and –

I jumped back from the mirror.

The reflection did not show the thirty-five-year-old man I expected, but instead a young Creole boy with sad eyes. I figured the mirror must be a gag or something. Maybe when you look in the fake glass you see someone else. I went back to test out this effect and was utterly shocked.

The Creole boy did not mimic my movements. This was not a reflection.

As the boy slowly raised his arm I noticed a birthmark on the inside of his elbow. I followed the path of his hand and saw that it pointed to the door.

"How much for the mirror over there?" I asked the man behind the counter.

"That ol' piece of junk?" he replied. "Someone dropped it off a few days ago an' I haven't had the chance to take it to the dump. It's worthless, even fer this store."

"Do you know why they were getting rid of it?"

"I chalked it up to the ol' superstition 'bout death an' mirrors."

"Superstition?"

"Yeah. Lots of Creole people 'round here take their folklore seriously. When someone dies in a house an' the mirrors ain't covered in time, the belief is that their spirit can get stuck inside. I reckon someone died at home an' this mirror was left uncovered, so the family thought their soul was in there. Makes sense to give it to a thrift store on account of that other ol' superstition 'bout you can't make no money off a haunted object. It's bad luck. An' it's bad luck to destroy it, too."

"Did you see another person in that mirror?"

"Pshaw!" he scoffed. "Ain't no trapped spirit in there. It's just a rusted ol' mirror that ain't worth nothin'."

My investigative nature just couldn't resist.

"I'll give you twenty bucks for it."

I propped the mirror on my desk and stared at the Creole boy inside. He'd placed his arm back by his side, but otherwise there was no change in his demeanor. He still had those sad eyes.

I had to know what happened to him. I had to help him.

"Who are you?" I asked. No response.

"What happened to you?" No response.

"How'd you get in there?" No response.

I thought perhaps he was unable to hear me through the glass barrier. Or it could be that he was unable to speak. Or maybe...I wasn't asking the right questions.

"How did you die?"

At that, the boy raised his arm and pointed at an empty wall. He then pointed to the opposite wall; the only thing there was my framed poster of the band Styx.

"I don't understand," I said. "I don't see how anything in this room can give me an answer."

The boy pointed to the walls again. He was clearly trying to tell me something, but for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. So I wrote down every single thing that came to mind when I looked at the walls: empty Styx...wall Styx...empty band...empty rock...wall frame...wall poster...

Hundreds of combinations later I wrote "green Styx," as the wall was painted green, and something clicked in my memory.

That name sounded familiar, and after plugging this information into a search engine the first result that came up was "Greenstick Lane," one of the roads I passed on my way here.

"It's an address!" I said excitedly to the boy. "I just need the number."

His gaze went above my head, and he stared upwards without blinking for a long time. I waited for his reaction for hours and almost called it quits when he finally pointed at something high on the wall. The only thing there was some cracked molding and a clock – a clock! Numbers! The time read 5:15. 

I searched 515 Greenstick Lane and a map to a house popped up.

"Is this where you died?" I asked.

No response, but his eyes looked less sad. I took that as a yes.

Twenty minutes later I was pulling into the long, gravelly driveway of 515 Greenstick Lane. I had no idea what I intended to do, or what I'd find, but somehow I knew this place was the key to unlocking the mystery of the boy in the mirror.

Coming up to the house I was stunned by its size. Although decrepit, the house was a mansion that was undoubtedly centuries old, resting on a large estate that spanned several acres.

The size of the house put everything into perspective for me and I knew why I was here: the boy must have died in this house without anyone knowing right away. The house was so large that nobody heard him fall or scream or whatever happened to him. The mirror wasn't covered in time, and his restless soul didn’t know where else to go.

I didn't know anything else about these local superstitions, or if there was a way to reverse or undo them, but the answer had to be in this house.

I saw lights on inside and knocked on the door, and when it opened an old Creole woman appeared. She had grief in her eyes that was strikingly familiar.

"Hi ma'am, I'm Dean Carter, investigative journalist for the...local paper," I lied. I honestly didn't mean to, it was just a force of habit. "Is there a young boy that had a residence here?"

"Stephen, my grandson."

"Does he have a birthmark on his arm, near his elbow?"

She nodded. A rush of relief flooded through me knowing that I came to the right place.

"I'm glad I found you," I said. "I'm here because I'm trying to help Stephen. He told me to come here - well, he didn't tell me, but he led me here. He's at my house right now - well, not at my house, exactly. He's trapped and he can't speak so I'm just trying to..."

The old woman's horrified expression stopped me in my tracks.

"What happened?" she said.

"I don't know, ma'am. I'm just here to find out how he died so I can help his soul move on."

"Who told you Stephen died?" she asked with tears in her eyes. "He went missing a few days ago and we've been out searching for him. What did you do to him?"

"What do you mean? You don't know that he –"

Oh...I just realized everything I said before sounded bad. Really bad. Incriminating, even. I raced out of there as quickly as I could. There didn't seem to be any cameras on the property and I doubt she could've read my license plate from a distance, but I was terrified.

Apparently, she didn't know her grandson died. She thought he was missing and I essentially confessed to trapping him in my house and killing him. I had to find out what happened, not only for his sake, but now for mine, too.

I dedicated the entire night to researching as much as I could about Stephen. It wasn't hard staying up, as the paranoia of having the police break down my door and take me in for questioning kept me alert.

I found that Stephen's address had recently been in the local news. There was an article detailing his disappearance that showed a picture of him, the unmistakable birthmark present just inside his elbow. I did some more digging and found an interview with his grandmother seated next to a scrawny man that had something tattooed on his neck.

"I just lost my daughter a few months ago," the grandmother cried. "The thought of something also happening to my grandson is unbearable."

The skinny man placed a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"We'll find him," he assured her.

After hours of exhaustive research I learned that the man in question was Stephen's stepfather, Henri. After Henri married Stephen's mother he moved into the mansion with them. The entire estate, I discovered, had been passed down for generations and was currently valued at over twenty million dollars.

Something about this information didn't sit right with me, but I had no choice but to wait until the morning to speak to the one person that may know something.

I pulled into the parking lot of the thrift store just as the man I had seen the other day flipped the sign to OPEN. I raced inside, almost barreling straight through a display in my haste to reach him.

"I need you to tell me everything you can about the person that brought in the mirror I bought," I said, slamming a fifty on the counter.

"Look, pal, I ain't 'bout to give out any information regardin' customers that come into my store."

I slammed down another fifty.

"But, if I were in a talkin' mood, I'd tell you that some feller came in here the other day with the mirror in tow," he said, casually sliding the bills into his back pocket. "He looked nervous an' was mutterin' to himself. He put the mirror on the counter without even lookin' at me and then left."

"Can you describe what he looked like?"

"I 'member him being a skinny feller. I reckon he'd only be a buck twenty-five soaking wet."

"Did he have a tattoo on his neck?"

"Yeah, come to think of it now, he did. Hey, how'd you know that?"

With no time to lose I bolted out of the store and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the man behind the counter staring out the front door in bewilderment.

"I know that Henri knows more than he's letting on," I explained to Stephen once I returned home. "I know your body's in that house. You have to tell me where."

Stephen pointed straight to the ceiling.

I immediately dialed the tip line I had found during my research.

"Task force tip line, all calls are anonymous. What information do you have?" a bored voice answered.

"I have a tip regarding the missing boy from 515 Greenstick Lane," I said. "His body is in the house and Henri knows about it."

"Sir, we already interviewed the family and found nothing to connect them to the child's disappearance. We also searched the entire property when the child was reported missing. We had our canine units on every inch of the grounds, inside and out. If the child was anywhere on the premises, alive or dead, those dogs would have found him."

"Did you bring the dogs into the attic?"

"No, sir, we didn't carry the dogs up into the attic, but we had officers up there searching and they didn't find anything. Now, if you have any more information to offer in the future, please be sure to -"

"He's in the attic!" I shouted. "Bring your dogs up there. I know he's in there."

"What makes you so sure?" the voice asked, now skeptical.

"An ol' Creole superstition."

"A man was arrested last week for the murder of his stepson. Due to an anonymous tipster the police were compelled to once again search the attic, but this time, they had their canines with them. The dogs immediately focused on a locked safe and the police broke it open to discover the body of the missing boy inside. He has since had his remains properly buried.

"Since the large estate on Greenstick Lane could only be willed to the next of kin in the absence of an heir, authorities speculate that this was the motive behind the murder. After the death of his wife, the suspect allegedly killed her son so that he would receive the deed. Now, her death is being further investigated as well."

My rusted old mirror only held my reflection now. The man staring back at me no longer focused on all the hardships in his life, but rather, the series of events that led him here and all that he has accomplished since.

Everything happens for a reason.

I tend to agree.