I push through the decorative carved double doors of my not-so-humble abode, the heady scent of French vanilla coffee wafting through the entire lake house making it smell like a coffee shop more than a house. My limbs feel heavy and lethargy gnaws at my frame, wanting to drag me down to the foyer floor and stay there until the sun sets over the horizon. But coffee keeps me moving until my knees hit the pale farmhouse kitchen cabinets and the brewing coffee pot occupying my gaze. The first thing that comes to mind isn’t:

Oh, Callahan, how the fuck is the machine already on considering you were just out cleaning out the old shed in the back.

Instead it’s chastising the choice of French vanilla beans. The other entity occupying my grandparents’ old lake house has become a part of the house’s decorative charm. It’s odd, really, not the superhuman being that I’m essentially roommates with but rather how long it took me to notice and figure it out.

From the moment I set foot in the house I felt another presence. I brushed that off as just first home jitters. Then peculiar things like portraits and books becoming sentient and moving around. Soft nightly howls that are too haunting to sound human but too human to be the Florence wind. Florence, Oregon wasn’t what I anticipated, though I doubt that anyone, UCLA mathematics and Computer Science graduate or otherwise, could anticipate having a gentle ghost as a housemate. I don’t know, what or who they are. They’re identity a mystery.

However, I’ve seen the glimpses of white running in the corner of my eye. The silhouette dancing in the formal living room in the dead of nights. But most prominently, I’ve felt their presence more than I’ve felt my parents or grandparents or any living body in my life. When they’re sad, I feel the weight tugging at my heart strings. When they’re happy I feel needles prickling at the soles of my feet urging me to dance for joy. When they’re angry I feel the urge to break. Something, anything, even myself.