The putrid reek of fresh coffee hits me like a ton of bricks at the bottom of the left staircase. Its twin sets in silence on the other side of an indoor fountain. This place is humongous. I run my right hand along the wooden banister. No dust after all these years. Peculiar.

The large kitchen at the back of this mansion buzzes with chatter. Last night left an impression all right.

“See it?” Doug says, pointing to the screen of their small tablet.

Jake nods. You could drive a semi through his mouth.

Doug scratches his frazzled black hair. “EMR waves all over him.”

Jake: “Ghost activity?”

Doug takes another hit from his Styrofoam cup. From the saddle bags under his eyes, I’d say Dougie’s been up most of the night.

“I’ve never seen magnetic distortions of that magnitude on one person before, man.”

His cameraman lowers his bloodshot green eyes into his freckled palms. “We’ve gotta call in the rest of the team, Doug. This is legit.”

They’re both staring at me like I’ve grown a third arm. “What’s going on?”

Doug waves me over. “Come here. You’ve gotta see this.”

Their high-end tablet screen shows me contorted in a large dining chair. Everything’s in shades of gray except for a bunch of twitching bands of color around me.

“See those?” Doug asks. “They represent the change in the magnetic field surrounding your body.”

I shake my head.

Doug: “We all have a little of it around us at any given point in time.”

Jake’s stubby finger traces the colored lines. “Those are changes the magnetism around you.”

“Can the Earth do that?” There’s gotta be a reasonable explanation.

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Jake’s head shakes in silence.

“Someone or something evoked those shifts in the field,” Doug says.

“Proof?” Seems like the answer to me.

Doug nods. He tilts his head toward the small table near the bay windows. “They aren’t of the same mindset, though.”

Dr. Benson, his wife, Patty, and Donna huddle around a stack of textbooks and loose papers. I overheard him yelling her name in the middle of their spat last night. ‘Patty, you’re just overreacting,’ he had said.

For such a huge house, it has thin walls.

‘The hell I am,’ Patty had screamed back. ‘You spend all of your time with her!’

Something thumped on their floor on the other side.

‘Donna’s my Grad. Assistant, dear. This is a part of her thesis.’

On and on, they went for the better part of an hour. I had given up and buried my head under my pillows around one.

Now, they sat in peace. At least, it looks that way.

“Why do you say that, Doug?” I watch the trio with mild amusement.

“The good doctor is a para-psychologist, Sean. He believes that your condition has more to do with your mind than external forces.”

Me: “Then, what about that?” (points to the tablet screen)

Doug: “The lines?” He chuckles. “Benson thinks I’m wasting my time.”

I walk over and pluck a doughnut from its little white box next to the sink. Glazed. Nice. “If the lines aren’t ghosts, then what are they?”

“Your body’s distortions, camera tricks, video editing.” He minimizes the window on the screen. “The list goes on and on.”

A small tan envelope icon flashes on the lower task bar. Doug opens his message. Whoever Emily is, she’s really excited at the recordings of my EMR waves, and will be here tomorrow afternoon.

“Sweet!” Doug says, clapping his hands. He leans closer to the screen as his hands fly over the keys. ‘Bring all of the usual gear. Don’t forget the extra-long extension cords!’

Jake: “They comin’?”

Doug nods and closes the email. “Em and Dylan will be here tomorrow afternoon.” He snags a small notebook from his satchel and scribbles down something. “We need to scope out this place and plan a full investigation for tomorrow night.”

“Yeah!” Jake’s in his element now. “I’ll do a little more digging in town on McAllister and see what I can uncover. There’s more to this guy than we’re finding on Google.”

“Nice,” Doug says. “I’m gonna walk the house and figure out where the hot spots are.”

I swallow the last bite of my breakfast and lick my fingers clean. “Can I come, too?”

Jake shrugs.

“Why not?” Doug says. “Meet me by the fountain in twenty. I’ve gotta drop a deuce first.”

“Okay.” I scuttle past Patty’s outside shoulder at the table.

She glances up at me for a fleeting moment, smiles, and goes back into a pile of papers.

“There has to be a logical explanation,” Donna contests. She sounds like she’s been backed into the corner of an argument.

“Two full liters of water, Donna.” Dr. Benson clacks something onto his laptop. “You saw it as well as the rest of us.”

“He could have chugged it prior to the whole charade.”

“Forcing one’s self to regurgitate is possible, of course.” His tone is level and cool. “The human stomach can’t hold that much fluid at once, though.”

It would appear as though the session challenged the good doctor’s skepticism last night.