'The setting here is real, an isolated island in the South Atlantic inhabited by only three hundred rather inbred individuals. Gemma Glass knows and despises them all, considering herself special because of her mother, who, she alleges, “came in with the tide one day, and one day went away again, before I even learned to say her name.” This makes Gemma special, she believes, and also because she is subject to the visual phenomena known as phosgenes. Gemma has learned that astronauts see these when passing through the radiation belt, so she has come to think the universe has selected her to reveal its secrets. Her lifelong ambition has been to leave the island, and now that she is finished with school at age sixteen, she is determined to put her plan into action by seducing the resident astronomer doing research at the local observatory.'
Source: Locus Magazine (https://locusmag.com/2014/10/lois-tilton-reviews-short-fiction-late-october-5/). (Sighted: 14/11/2018)
