Showing results for title "Gather the Daughters" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Years ago, just before the country was incinerated to wasteland, 10 men and their families colonized an island off the coast. They built a radical society of ancestor worship, controlled breeding, and the strict rationing of knowledge and history. Only the Wanderers - chosen male descendants of the original 10 - are allowed to cross to the wastelands, where they scavenge for detritus among the still-smoldering fires.

On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day reign inside and outside the home while girls know they will be married and pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood. But before that time comes, there is an island ritual that offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their doorsteps to roam wild: they run, they fight, they sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. They are free.