The Dovekeepers

by Alice Hoffman

Every Zealot had a plan should disaster come, a direction in which he would run if need be.

People often lied about water, promising pools where there were none, dreaming of water in a world composed of dust.

could see his face transform as he stared at me; there was something burning and reckless in his glance. It came to be that the only time I felt alive was when he looked at me. His very presence was like bee stings, riveting my attention.

Ours was a destroying sort of love.

Guilt was like that, I had discovered. Remote, until it struck.

The sisters were so close their words were like beads on the same strand of gold.

The truth about people surfaced just as surely as tiny silver fish arose from the sand in the desert when there was flooding, miraculously appearing in the ravines amid the sudden rushing streams.

I did not believe in tears, my own or others’, I thought they were shameful, a sign of weakness, but I had no choice but to lie silently beside her and listen as she cried.

Agreed.

No one in my house but an assassin who berated me when I swept his floor.

PERHAPS it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.

Be a pauper, a wanderer, a secret in the darkness of night. Once you possess something others do not, you are a target for the wicked.

I wondered what else she had done that had called for such bravery, or if, like mine, her courage sprang from sorrow.

Hunger struck everyone in the desert at the same time.

Love made you give yourself away, it bound you to this world, and to another’s fate.