Dying to Marry Him novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Faithful Until Death

Loretta came back with a veil in a few minutes, and nobody asked where she had found it.

It was the lace runner off the long breakfast table, pinned to my hair with two forks.

"Hold still," she said. "I am not a professional."

"You've never been a professional at anything but buses."

"And look how that went," said Loretta, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.

Rook stood on the altar steps with the chewed pen in his hand and the sheet held against his forearm.

Gilt sat at the foot of the steps with his stabbed hand wrapped in a napkin.

Rook looked down at him and wrote one more line, quick and upright.

He read it aloud so the whole chapel could hear.

"The Host's ceiling goes dark. No one is obliged to watch Barnaby Gilt ever again."

The gold letters over the pews flickered.

They broke apart into sparks and went out.

The chapel was lit by morning alone.

The monsters in the pews rose without a word and began to file toward the open doors.

The moth stopped in front of Gilt with his paperback against his chest.

"I would like a refund," he said politely. "For the seasons I watched."

"You," Gilt began.

"With interest." The moth sniffed and went out into the grass.

Gilt put his good hand over his face.

Loretta crossed to him, and for a moment I thought she was going to be kind.

She retied the napkin on his hand, tight.

"You're not riding my bus," she said, and walked away.

Rook bent over the sheet again.

"Every bride who wishes to go home finds her own door where she left it," he read aloud, as he wrote.

At the back of the chapel, one by one, plain doors stood in the morning light.

One had a child's drawing taped to it. One had a dog's chewed leash hanging on the knob.

The nurse looked at the first and put her hand over her mouth.

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