The Loveliest Dead Read Online Free PDF

her bedroom reading anyway, he did not even notice she was gone. She climbed out her bedroom window and rode her bike over to Mrs. Youngblood’s house, eager to hear what the woman had to say.  
    As they made cookies that evening, Mrs. Youngblood had explained that she’d been just as frightened and mystified as Lily when she was that age. She had not understood her abilities, had not known how to deal with them. Just as Lily had been doing, Mrs. Young-blood had read up on psychic phenomena. Everything she’d learned about her abilities she’d learned on her own.  
    “But it would have been so much easier,” she said, “if someone else who had the gift had shared her knowledge of it with me. And that’s what I want to do for you.”  
    Until then, Lily had been unable to walk through a room full of people without being deluged with dizzying psychic input that made no sense to her. Over the next four years, Mrs. Youngblood taught her how to turn down the volume of that input, how to deflect the incoming information so she could think clearly and concentrate on her school work. She taught Lily how to sift through all the thoughts and images and single out specific information, how to make sense of it. Most of all, she made Lily understand that there was nothing wrong with her, that she was not crazy. She simply had been born with a gift that few shared. Mrs. Youngblood always referred to it as a “gift.”  
    “A lot of people claim to have the gift,” Mrs. Youngblood told her one evening. “Most of them are frauds. Those who really do have it tend to keep it to themselves, because it can’t be used as easily as those frauds claim to use it. You can’t pick and choose the information you get so easily—what comes, comes. If you know what you’re doing, you can make sense of it, but not always. While you can manipulate the gift, you can never completely control it. For instance, you can’t go to Las Vegas and make a fortune with it, or use it to play the horses at the tracks. Sometimes, no matter how well you try to block them, things will come through. Sometimes these things will be so powerful, so overwhelming, they will make you physically ill. And when you have visions like that, you’ll find you have to act on them.”  
    “What do you mean, act on them?” Lily had asked.
    “The gift comes with a certain responsibility, Lily. You may receive information that could help someone, perhaps save someone from harm or even death. When that happens, you are obligated to act on that information. At least, that’s the way I see it. Have you gotten any religion in your life, Lily?”  
    “We used to go to the Methodist church every Sunday when Mom was alive.”
    “Well, I am of the opinion that this is a gift from God, and God does not give gifts without reason or purpose. There will be times when you must use this gift to help others, whether you want to or not.”  
    Lily did not fully understand what Mrs. Youngblood meant until years later.
    When Lily was fourteen, Mrs. Youngblood introduced her to a friend named Dolores Reeder, a plump, gray-haired woman’ in her early sixties who dressed flamboyantly and wore a lot of clattering jewelry. Mrs. Reeder and her husband, Clay, owned a metaphysical bookstore, The Crystal Well, in the town of Mt. Shasta. The Reeders had a lifelong interest in the paranormal, and while neither of them shared Mrs. Youngblood’s gift, they were aware of it. With Lily’s permission, Mrs. Youngblood told Mrs. Reeder how strong Lily’s gift was, that it was the most powerful she had ever encountered, even stronger than her own.  
    The summer after Lily graduated from high school, Mrs. Youngblood moved to Colorado to be near her daughter and grandchildren. Mrs. Youngblood knew how unhappy Lily was at home. By then, Charles was working with their father in his plumbing business, but he still lived at home. Lily’s father and brother, while unaware of her gift, knew there was