The Ring of the Dove

The musician materialized one morning in late July while I watered the garden. Through the spray mist and its fleeting rainbows, his dark form appeared like a statue. His hair was plaited to his shoulders, his smile inviting, and his brown eyes so lively, I kinked the hose, afraid I was getting his guitar wet.

But of course, it couldn’t get wet. It wasn’t a physical guitar. A handsome man who looked at me kindly? Apparently, they’d rather die than do that.

My garden was the epicenter of a spiritual vortex, and a new ghost visited about once a week, always wanting something—contact with a loved one, the recovery of a beloved piece of jewelry, a poetry manuscript the spirit dreamed of publishing—before they flitted back to wherever they’d come from. This did nothing to improve my love life, in chagrined contrast with my hopes for moving so close to the center of town.

More often than not, the phantasms presented as ancient or as women, so normally I wasn’t thrown for a loop, but this one was handsomer than any man I’d ever seen alive. I couldn’t deal with feeling attracted to a ghost, so I laid the hose down. “I need to eat lunch. Please don’t come into the house.”

“I’ll be here when you return,” he said with a delicate resonance that seemed to tickle the back of my neck. Even as I opened the back door, stamping the dirt off my shoes, I doubted his words. His bare feet flickered on the soil, and I was sure he’d extinguish while I was inside.

He seemed laid back in comparison to the other ghosts, and I wondered what he could possibly want as I prepared a chickpea salad and poured a glass of smooth California Merlot. It would pair well with the tomatoes in the salad, and maybe it would give me some perspective on the situation. I decided to eat quickly and check on the ghost, hoping he would still be there.

When I brought my plate and glass to the table, he stood in the dining room. His hair and undefined clothing blended against the wood paneling, but there was no mistaking him.

“Don’t you know about boundaries? What about ‘don’t come into the house’ do you not understand?”

“I thought you might like some musical accompaniment to your meal.” He grinned and adjusted the guitar across his chest, then strummed a wall of intimate cascading sounds that enraptured my senses. It was more entrancing than a live concert.

“Wow,” I said when he paused. “Were you a very successful musician … before?” I knew from long experience that mentioning a ghost’s death easily led to outbursts of a poltergeist nature.

“I was… still am.”

“And where did you play? The Middle East? Is that your musical style?”

“Oh, no, I’m American. I’m setting Ibn Hazm’s The Ring of the Dove to music. That was the overture. Listen.

“My love for thee shall aye endure

“As now, most perfect and most pure;

“It brooks no increase, no decline,

“Since it’s complete, and wholly thine.”

Hearing those words against that guitar, I understood the meaning of eternity.

He stopped again, breaking the spell. But only a little.

I tried to reason the sensations away. “What is this dove ring?”

He produced a phantom book out of the air, and I left the table and tried to take it, but of course I couldn’t. He opened the leather cover to reveal an ancient page covered in Arabic script. “The Ring of the Dove. They told me it’s the best text to make someone fall in love forever.”

Now we were getting to it! “And who are you trying to make fall in love? What are you here for?”

“You. I’m supposed to take you with me.”

I hadn’t touched my lunch, and it was just as well for my stomach, but I felt woozy, anyway. Was this a first date? A marriage proposal? “With you? Where?”

“I think you know. The ghosts have taken a liking to you and would like you to join us.”

Through the window, I saw a large gray mass fall out of the sky. I opened the garden door and saw that a flock of doves, maybe forty or fifty of them, had created a perfect circle on the small patch of lawn before the flowerbeds. They weren’t the pigeon-like doves I’d seen before. These had rings around their lithe necks. They certainly hadn’t come from nearby.

My handsome ghost stood behind me. “All you have to do is follow me into the circle. Then we can be together forever. We will feel no pain and no cold, for each will be balm and warmth to the other. You will never be lonely again.”

I struggled to breathe and collapsed against the door frame. The ghost passed into the garden, gazing at me expectantly.

I wanted nothing more than to run to him, to accept his protection, to feel the warmth of his arms around me. But even if I could feel them, his arms wouldn’t be warm. I gasped as the air crowded back into my lungs.

“I’m afraid we’re too different. For one thing, I’m alive.”

He stepped into the dove circle. “That’s easy to change. Come with me.”

He strummed his guitar, surrounding me with the promise of undying love as I had never experienced for just a moment.

I had to cut myself some slack for being tempted. It was ridiculous, but this was the best first date I’d ever been on. Great food and wine, and the man was not only gorgeous, but talented, and rarest of all, he was seriously interested in me. It seemed cruel to reject him outright simply because he wasn’t alive.

Then I thought of all the other ghosts who’d visited me over the years. All of them had needed something from me because they had ties to this living world. If I followed the ghosts, I would never have a reason to come back to this garden because I hadn’t touched anyone’s life. I hadn’t left anything undone, because I hadn’t started anything.

I felt too choked up to speak. There had to be a living man who would make me an interesting earthly offer. And even if not, I had to start a community concert series that would leave a different legacy in this haunted house. I waved the ghost on.

He played the first few bars of his overture again, and the doves lifted as one from the ground around him. As they rose, he disappeared, first his feet, his knees, his waist, and then the music stopped because the guitar was gone. The ring of doves lifted into the sky, leaving me far below.

And there I was. Alive, alone. But with hope and a fruity glass of Merlot.