The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

what men yearn for they often destroy.

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

I would never have believed I would come to live in a king’s fortress where the wind engulfs us and claims us, making it clear we are nothing more than a moment in time.

If we had paid attention, we would have understood there are some things in this world you cannot outrun.

“Being human means losing everything we love best in the world,” she murmured as she released me. “But would you ask to be anything else?”

I understood that fate could not be eluded forever; it came on leathery wings, swooping through the darkness like the bats in the orchards.

We were so alike it was painful, two people who had drowned in the same pool.