Tombs of Endearments Read Online Free PDF

blurted out, “Channeling? Like changing the channels on TV?”

    “Channeling like capturing my spirit and making me do what he wants me to do.”

    I thought this over, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then again, I was a woman who didn’t believe in ghosts until they started butting in on my life. I was quickly finding out that taking a walk on the spooky side meant learning about a whole bunch of things I never knew existed and never would have believed in before my Gift reared its ugly psychic head.

    “You mean Vinnie makes you write songs for him?” I asked Damon, trying to get it all straight. “Even though you’re dead?”

    “Sort of.” Damon may have been a genius when it came to dark lyrics, but it was clear this was hard to explain, even for him. “As far as I can see, this is how it works. The body is sort of like a car, and a car needs energy from a battery to run, right?”

    I knew as much about cars as I used to know about ghosts. Still, I couldn’t argue with this. I nodded.

    “But a car doesn’t care where that energy comes from. You could buy a battery anywhere, from any manufacturer, and your car would still work.”

    “And this is the same as channeling because…”

    “Because it’s the same thing as what happens when Vinnie channels my spirit. His body still works, but the energy comes from me.”

    I was getting dizzy again. To chase away my confusion, I started walking and since I didn’t have a whole lot to say, this worked out perfectly. We walked. Damon talked.

    “Vinnie’s been doing it for years,” he said. “He’s got it down pat. He calls on my spirit, and like it or not, when he calls, I have to go. I get drawn into his body, and I become the energy that runs it. When I do, he makes me write songs for him.”

    I thought about the green Magic Marker lyrics on the pizza box. “So why isn’t this a good thing?” I asked him. “I mean, you’re a songwriter, right? And songwriters are all about hearing their words come to life. Shouldn’t this make you happy?”

    “You actually get it.” He said this like it was something exceptional, and I basked in the glow of the compliment. “There aren’t many people who understand. You must be an artist yourself.”

    Only when it came to accessorizing fashion. I would have pointed this out if I didn’t remember that back in Damon’s day, fashion was pretty much defined by how many love beads a person wore with dirty jeans and raggy T-shirts. Needless to say, I shivered at the very thought.

    “I’m making you cold.”

    Damon’s comment caught me off guard, but I answered instantly. “No. That’s not it.”

    “Then maybe I’m making you hot?”

    When he said this with a little growl in his voice, it wasn’t easy to deny. I tried, anyway, with a tight smile and a quick detour back to the original subject. I was helped out because by that time, we were back in the lobby of the Rock Hall and face to face with the poster of Mind at Large that advertised their upcoming concert.

    “Which one is Vinnie?” I asked.

    The Rock Hall employee standing nearby—a young, perky blond whose nametag said she was Sarah—naturally thought I was talking to her. She pointed at the poster, left to right. “Vinnie, Ben, Alistair, Mighty Mike, Pete. I think.”

    I scanned the poster and the five guys on it. Every single one of them must have been at least sixty, and I thought about how different they looked on the poster outside the building, the one that showed Mind at Large back in Damon’s day, before they had forty years of hard rockin’ under their belts.

    Back then, Alistair had been the cute one. Now his hair was silver, his jowls drooped, he wore glasses as thick as soda bottles. Mighty Mike (I’d heard tell the nickname came from female fans who couldn’t get enough of his wide shoulders and broad chest) had a stomach that pouched over his belt, and Pete was so thin, I’m pretty sure a brisk wind