The Island by Teri Hall

just from the look in his eyes.
    Tom came back out to the main room. He sat down on his stool, slowly, as though he was an old, old man.
    “She’s sleeping.” His voice was no more than a whisper. “She’s worn out, poor thing. Worried to death about Hannah.”
    “Where is Hannah?” Pathik kept his voice low.
    Tom stared at the table top. For a moment Rachel thought he hadn’t heard Pathik, but then he looked up. “Right now, she’s probably in the office. That’s where they take them.”
    “The Honorees?” Rachel started to stand. “Let’s go get her, then.”
    Tom slid his eyes Rachel’s way. “It doesn’t work like that. They’ll just say she went willingly— willingly .” He spat the word out with derision. “In front of all of us, today at assembly. You saw her.” He sounded tired. “They’ll wipe her sometime before tomorrow.” His voice tore.
    “Wipe her?” Pathik tightened his arm around Rachel’s waist. He could feel the pain emanating from Tom; it was like a wave of red heat. “What does that mean?”
    Tom focused on the table top again. “The Honoree thing only started a few years ago—” He counted on his fingers, matching something in his mind—Rachel realized it was the names of Honorees—with the number of fingers he ticked off. “It’s been six years.
    “Some people came to the island—they said they were from the government. I don’t know which one.” He squinted, as though it helped him remember. “I was on the beach that day, gathering clams like we used to do. I was just a kid then. Hannah was with me.” He smiled. “She wasn’t doing her fair share of the gathering, as usual. I think she knew I was sweet on her, even then.” He sat, silent for so long that Rachel felt certain he’d forgotten they were even in the room.
    “Tom,” Rachel said, gently. “What happened?”
    Tom’s smile faded. He looked at her, and she could see how hard it was for him to bring himself back to the room they were in, how hard it was to let go of his memories of Hannah, that day on the beach.
    “They came from nowhere.” Tom frowned. “I didn’t see a boat. I figured out later that they must have landed on some other beach on the island. They just appeared from behind the dune, at least twenty of them, all pointing guns. It was just us kids—Hannah, me, a couple of others. They grabbed Melissa, Hannah’s friend. One of them said they’d kill us all if we gave them any trouble. They started dragging her away, but Melissa could ping—better than Hannah, stronger—and she did. Before they got far there were thirty, maybe forty of our people on the beach.”
    Tom closed his eyes. “Keith was there. He told them to let Melissa go, but they just laughed. Keith started toward the two men who had Melissa, and one of them pointed one of the strange guns at him and he fell. At first we all thought he was dead, but he was just asleep.”
    “The guns must have been stunners.” Rachel wished they had one now. She thought of the stunner Ms. Moore had had, illegal, enough to get her sentenced to a Labor Pool if she’d been found with it her possession.
    “I don’t know.” Tom continued. “Filina was there that day. She walked right up to them. It was the strangest thing. She just stared at them—the men holding Melissa—just stared, and talked softly. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. But they let Melissa go.”
    Pathik and Rachel exchanged a look. “Filina was in charge back then, too?” asked Pathik.
    Tom shook his head. “Nobody was in charge back then. It used to be different here. We all voted on things—at least the adults did. But that day, Filina was the only one who could stop them. Even though she didn’t stop them, not really.”
    “She got Melissa back.” Rachel said it grudgingly. She didn’t like Filina.
    Tom stared at her. “She didn’t. After they gave Melissa back, she talked to them for a long time, on the beach. She told them they had to