The Meeting Tree

A patriarchal leadership has emerged in the United States.

Its political figures govern what they have dubbed an Institution of Chivalry: Men may live full professional and social lives; women are confined to the home. Boys are permitted to learn worldly things in a classroom; girls must be homeschooled in the art of homemaking and marriage.

Not everyone is happy with this system, least of all the girls and women living under its rule. For anyone who dares to publicly question or secretly threaten it, however, the consequences are dire, and the leadership has had so many years of success in quelling any uprisings that they are comfortable in the security of their reign. They are confident.

They are arrogant.

And after they violently target a young woman who happens to be a beloved neighborhood mentor, they are also unprepared for the uncommonly skilled group of girls who finally fight back.

Lena Tasi is a writer living in the US.