He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: June
I took the ring off the pigeon's leg with fingers that would not work.
The bird stood still for it.
"Is this you asking?" I called through the open door.
Cathal stood in the hall in his shirtsleeves with two mugs of coffee, and the sight of him went through me.
He had been standing there a while.
"It's the bird asking," he said.
"I'm only the man who tied the knot."
I put the ring on.
It fit, and I held up my hand to the window and the light came through the gold.
"Yes," I said.
"Yes, you idiot, I thought you'd never."
He set both mugs on the dresser, crossed the room and lifted me off the bed.
The week before the wedding, he sold the Almond Street house to a young couple from Fishtown.
On the last morning he stood in the upstairs hall with a crowbar in his hand and looked at the cellar door.
I stood beside him, and Bridie stood on his other side in her scrubs.
"I thought you'd want a witness," Bridie said.
"I want both of you," said Cathal.
He set the bar in the seam and leaned his weight on it.
The old paint cracked down the length of the door, and the wood groaned, and then the door gave and swung wide.
A smell of wet stone came up.
He switched on the light, and the stairs stood bare.
They were gray concrete, going down to a floor with a washing machine, a drain and a pile of folded boxes.
"Damp," Cathal said.
He started down.
I watched him descend, and Bridie held my hand.
He reached the bottom and turned a slow circle.
Nobody was there.
He stood in the light for a long time, and then he came back up two steps at a time.
"There's no one down there," he said.
"No," said Bridie, and her voice shook.
"There never was, not for six years."
He did not wake from a dream that night.
The wedding was on the second Saturday in June.
St. Colman's was full to the street, and the doors stood open to the heat.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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