Ben had seen the ad while on lunch break from his regular job as a plumber. Sitting at his favorite outdoor café, The Pompadour, he reached for the saltshaker on the table. Flashes of annoyance and traces of a heated conversation moved across his mind, distracting him from the ad about Thorne Manor. The last person who had touched the object was battling with her husband via cell phone, as she was aggressively shaking salt onto her meal. Ben was hypersensitive to the energies people left on objects, traces of themselves that spoke volumes about their character and their personal lives.
Since he was about ten years old, Ben had been aware of his gift. He used it to his advantage in school to find out what his teachers were planning for exams and what girls he liked wanted in a boy. Certain
