Jill Boardman—Patricia Paiwonski

Jill Boardman—Patricia Paiwonski is a relationship formed when Patricia accepts Jill and Mike’s offer of water and becomes their enduring partner and sister. The rite is not a casual welcome: Jill explains its irrevocable trust, while Patricia chooses it freely; the kinship then takes on a further, distinctly human intimacy that Jill understands as another way of growing closer. Their bond joins Martian ritual to the practical tenderness of a shared life, and eventually places Patricia among the people who welcome newcomers into the Nest.

The water-sharing bond

Jill presents the ceremony as both baptism-like and marriage-like, explaining that it makes the participants partners who may tell one another anything, now and forever. Its permanence is serious enough that breaking the bond would require death, but the offer is not coercive: Patricia may refuse without losing their friendship. Jill also makes clear that she and Mike do not belong to Patricia’s church, despite Patricia’s assumption; they can at most be called seekers, and Patricia should not accept if the rite conflicts with her faith or her heart.

Patricia takes a deep breath and chooses the bond. The choice recalls a decision she once made with her husband watching, one she had not backed away from; now, she says firmly that she wants the water. Jill drinks first, names their growing closeness, and passes the glass to Mike. Mike gives Patricia the water of life and wishes her that she may always drink deeply. Patricia drinks thirstily, thanks them, and declares her love; Jill finishes the glass and calls them brothers. The ritual’s language makes kinship reciprocal: Patricia is not merely welcomed by the couple but joins them as a partner in a relationship that cannot be undone.

From ritual to shared intimacy

For Jill, the water-sharing ceremony immediately opens into another ancient human rite. She regards Patricia’s acceptance of intimacy with Mike as a natural and necessary continuation of their newly established bond. The narrative distinguishes the Martian ceremony from the physical human act without treating them as rivals: both become forms of growing closer. Jill is happy that the threshold has been reached and passed through what she understands as right action, while Patricia remains calm even as Mike demonstrates abilities beyond the miracles Jill had previously disclosed to her.

Patricia’s calm has a history: she has encountered a holy man before and expects more of holy men. Jill does not yet know this when she interprets Patricia’s composure, so their understanding of the moment is not identical. Yet the difference does not undermine the relationship. Jill’s happiness is grounded in the bond and in her own experience of the moment; Patricia’s faith and prior experience shape how she receives it. The connection can hold those distinct perspectives without demanding that either woman abandon her own account of what has happened.

Afterward, play and care become part of their shared intimacy. Mike gives Patricia a bath by telekinesis, while Jill sits at the tub’s edge, giggling at the older woman’s reactions. What began as an almost accidental convenience for Jill has become a custom she knows Patricia will enjoy: invisible hands wash her, then dry her without either a towel or a blast of air. The scene makes their closeness ordinary as well as sacred. Patricia’s request for a large drink after the bath turns the miraculous service into familiar domestic pleasure, and Jill’s delight rests as much on Patty’s enjoyment as on the novelty of Mike’s ability.

Kinship expressed through care

The relationship appears again in small exchanges that make its permanence tangible. When Patricia speaks of what she wants from them, she asks only for their love and for assurance that they are saved. Jill answers that Patricia already has their love. Mike admits that he does not understand the word love, but trusts Jill’s judgment and offers whatever they have as Patricia’s. His uncertainty about the term does not diminish the commitment: the promise is enacted through the water rite, shared life, and recurring acts of affection rather than through an abstract definition.

Patricia later offers them something of her own, describing it as water she is sharing so they may grow closer. Jill initially resists taking it, saying that this is something they cannot accept, but Patricia insists on the meaning of the gift. Jill then accepts, says it belongs to all of them now, and kisses her. Mike playfully asks for his turn, and Jill calls herself greedy for such affection. The exchange reverses the direction of giving: the couple first welcomed Patricia into their bond, but Patricia is also able to offer, and Jill receives her offering as common property. Their kinship is sustained by this mutual movement rather than by a one-sided act of admission.

Patricia within the Nest

Jill’s regard for Patricia reaches beyond the private relationship into the structure of the community. She describes Patricia as someone who never doubts and automatically does the right thing, comparing her to Mike and judging her the most advanced among them. Jill believes Patricia ought to be high priestess, but explains that Patricia will not accept the role because her extensive tattoos could complicate its duties or distract others, and she does not want them removed. Mike could erase them without pain, Jill says, but understands that Patricia regards herself as their custodian rather than their owner and respects that understanding.

This account shows the difference between recognition and authority. Jill sees Patricia as exceptionally advanced, yet Patricia’s visible tattoos and her choice to retain them affect whether she will take a formal office. Her place in the bond and in the community does not depend on becoming high priestess. The shared water relationship recognizes her as family, while Jill’s account of her judgment and refusal gives her stature without requiring a title or a change to her body.

Patricia also helps make the Nest’s welcome concrete for people not yet fully at home there. When Ben Caxton visits, she shows him the circular Innermost Temple, its cushioned floor and central pool, and offers him the opportunity to share water or simply swim. He declines for the moment, and she accepts his hesitation with the reply that waiting is. The same patient hospitality that frames her own freely chosen entry is thus extended outward: the bond is serious and enduring, but its invitation does not erase another person’s right to wait.

A bond that makes room for others

Jill and Mike’s relationship with Patricia forms one example of a larger practice in which intimacy, spiritual commitment, and communal belonging develop together. Mike can sometimes recognize readiness for water-sharing before a person reaches the later circles; Jill recalls that he chose Sam and Ruth when they had just entered the Third Circle, and that they later became priest and priestess. Such advancement is not simply a ladder of rank. The account emphasizes readiness, study, and help, with the Nest’s fuller ceremony marking a lasting welcome into the community.

The ritual’s meaning also recurs in the story of Sam and Ruth’s own entry. Ruth remembers being frightened before the ceremony, unsure whether she could merge herself with the other members. In the Innermost Temple, the spotlight, the pool, and the Nest’s call in Martian turn that fear into welcome: she enters the water and describes herself as never having come back up. Patricia’s own bond with Jill and Mike anticipates this pattern of chosen entry and enduring belonging. Together, the relationships show how the Nest makes kinship through an invitation that is explicit about its seriousness, allows refusal, and becomes real through reciprocal trust and care.