Cigarettes and Butter: The Grace Jackson Trilogy, #2

By Amy Venezia

Cole Kitchen is a musical revolutionary who exits the world unexpectedly with a single gunshot wound to the head.  Grace Jackson is a gifted medium with a penchant for attracting souls who seek both lightness and truth.  More than 20 years after his death, Cole Kitchen appears in Grace's apartment relaying a single, cryptic message.  Did Cole succumb to the pressures of life in the limelight and kill himself?  

Cigarettes and Butter is a first-hand account of a rock legend's last moments in life, his reflections on fame and family…and his odd proclivity for cupcakes and butter.  Through a journey that spans two decades and dimensions, Cole relives the events that led to his death, and Grace discovers a newfound sense of gratitude for life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Veneziea
• Release date: May 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780692130469

Amy Venezia

Amy Venezia is an intuitive whose work has gained national attention. In her spare time, she loves to write about the supernatural. Grunge & Grace is the first of three books in a trilogy focused on the afterlife and what is truly possible between souls.

Book preview

1

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Grace could smell the scent of cigarettes swirling around her like a small cyclone. Usually, she hated the smell of cigarettes. But this was almost pleasant. She could practically taste it, and perhaps it was the experience itself that helped her tolerate the stench.

She lay in bed, knowing exactly who was coming to her.

I would really like to get some sleep tonight...so if you are going to show me something...do it now, please, she whispered.

Not demanding. Not rude. Grace just wanted to sleep...and she'd felt his presence hovering around her for days now, never saying a word. They’d yet to communicate fully, but every time he came around, her nostrils would be overwhelmed with the scent of cigarettes...leaving a distinct taste in her mouth.

As Grace began drifting off to sleep, she heard something moving in the front room. Her bed faced that room, with large pocket doors separating the two. Grace kept the pocket doors open to create one large room.

Lifting her head from the pillow, eyes squinting, Grace tried to focus on what she could only make out as an apparition moving towards her from the couch.

Her hair was standing on end as she listened to the footsteps creaking on the wood floor, moving closer and closer. She could make out the shape of what appeared to be a male body dressed in a grey suit. Although she could hear his feet make contact with the wood floors, he seemed to be almost floating. It was dark, but in her lucid state she focused on what could only be described as snapshots of details. She could see he was wearing a vest under the suit...and she could make out a vest pocket...with a pocket watch that he held in one hand. She could see the skin of his hand was pale...almost translucent.

It seemed like time was standing still, even her breath. Nothing was moving but him, as he slowly came towards her.

Grace was so focused on the details she hadn’t noticed the most shocking one of all...

He was headless.

Fear coursed through her as she closed her eyes in an effort to shut out his image. It wasn’t that she was scared of him...it was more the shock of seeing a man with no head, in her bedroom, moving towards her.

Oh, come on... Grace said aloud, feeling him standing right next to her, at the side of the bed. She could feel him inches from her arm. She refused to open her eyes.

Nope. I’m sorry...can’t do it. Caaaaan’t have you show up headless, standing by my bed, and expect me not to freak out!! She felt like a little girl refusing her cough medicine. She was shaking her head back and forth in complete refusal as she said it.

She was about to open her eyes when she heard him whisper, audibly, into her ear...clear as day.

The suit killed me.

And with that, Grace gasped for air, as if she’d been under water for too long.

The only thing she could think to ask was...

Well, what the hell did they do with your head??

2

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Cole Kitchen found it ironic that the last room he was in, on the last night of his life, was the kitchen. That is, the last room he was in willfully.

He also found it ironic that he was standing in a kitchen that he’d never imagined he could afford in his younger years...yet, he was heating up something that resembled potatoes in the microwave; a meal that probably cost him three bucks at the most. He didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to see the sun setting from the kitchen window, and to say he ate something that day.

Fuck...if I knew that was going to be my last meal I would have made some Kraft Mac & Cheese, he mumbled, cigarette hanging from his mouth. Now, he found himself in Grace’s ...well...you guessed it...kitchen.

He’d been hanging