Valentine Michael Smith—Patricia Paiwonski

Valentine Michael Smith’s water-brother relationship with Patricia Paiwonski turns a difference in religious belief into a bond of chosen kinship. Patricia understands Smith as a holy man and his powers as miraculous; Smith and Jill Boardman invite her to share water without asking her to abandon that interpretation. The ceremony makes trust and partnership permanent, and its consequences reveal how Smith is learning that human intimacy can hold spiritual meanings his Martian teachers did not know.

Recognition and Religious Difference

Patricia’s response to Smith’s abilities is not simply astonishment. Concerned by what she has witnessed, she asks whether it was real magic, then says she would rather call it a miracle. Jill assures her that Smith cannot lie. Patricia consequently names him a holy man and compares him to Archangel Foster, who, in her understanding, performed miracles before recognizing his own holiness.

The conversation does not end with Patricia forcing a religious identity on Smith. After speaking with him, she accepts that he is the Man from Mars and agrees to treat him as a man, while explicitly retaining her own belief about his spiritual nature and purpose on Earth. She draws on the distinction she makes between Foster’s humanity and his angelic nature: Smith and Jill may call themselves seekers, but she remains sure they are saved. If they do not accept that description, she will treat them as they ask. Her faith therefore supplies the terms in which she understands him, but does not prevent her from respecting his own account of himself.

The Water-Brother Ceremony

Smith does not fetch water in the ordinary way. He sends a glass from the drinks tray into the bathroom, has the tap fill it, and returns it to Jill. The small, practical act introduces an extraordinary ability into a ceremony whose meaning Jill explains plainly: sharing water is like baptism and marriage, establishes mutual trust, and makes the participants partners. She stresses that the bond cannot be broken without a terrible consequence, but also makes clear that Patricia need not accept; friendship will remain, and neither of them wants her faith or conscience to be compromised.

Smith reinforces the freedom of the choice. He tells Patricia that Jill has spoken correctly, describes the bond as carrying everything marriage does and more, and urges her not to drink if any religious or personal reason argues against it. Patricia chooses firmly to accept. Jill drinks first and passes the glass to Smith; he gives Patricia the water and a blessing, and Patricia drinks. The sequence makes the relationship mutual rather than a conversion imposed on her: Patricia accepts the bond while retaining her own religious understanding.

Kinship, Intimacy, and Smith’s Learning

The bond has consequences beyond the ceremony itself. Smith’s understanding of human physical love is changing: he has come to regard it not only as reproduction or as a ritual that helps people grow closer, but as a form of growing closer in its own right. He is still trying to understand its fullness, and the narrative presents this discovery as one of the spiritual depths he finds among his new people—depths he believes were unknown even to the Old Ones who raised him.

Patricia’s acceptance of the water-brother bond also places her within the intimate relationship shared by Smith and Jill. Jill sees this development as a fitting passage across a cusp, reached through right action. Smith, however, distinguishes intimacy from mere physicality: he says that sex is a goodness only when it involves sharing and growing closer, and admits uncertainty about what it would mean without that bond. In his later explanation to Jill, he recognizes that he could not have approached Patricia in the same way before they became water brothers. The relationship thus joins affection to an ethical condition of mutual trust, rather than treating intimacy as entitlement.

The Mark, Departure, and Continuing Bond

Smith’s bond with Patricia becomes visible in a further exchange. He kisses her, then carefully places a second mark beside the one associated with Foster. The paired marks appear on her skin as red stigmata, and Patricia recognizes the act as momentous. The scene connects Smith’s relationship with her to her history in the Fosterite community without making the two meanings identical: her existing religious signs remain, while Smith adds a sign of his own care and spiritual understanding.

Soon afterward, Patricia changes from the tattooed performer Jill knows as Aunt Patty into a reserved housewife in high-necked clothing, long sleeves, and gloves. She leaves without looking back, saying that it is not goodbye because there are no goodbyes in eternity, and that she will be waiting. The separation does not cancel the bond. Its permanence is part of what makes the farewell possible: Patricia can depart from the immediate circle while understanding their connection as enduring.

Patricia’s Place in the Nest

The relationship continues to matter in the life of the Nest. Patricia shows Ben Caxton the circular Innermost Temple, with its central pool, and explains that new brothers are received there. She invites him to share water or simply swim, but accepts his hesitation with the Nest’s language of waiting. Her role is not confined to the earlier ceremony with Smith; she helps introduce newcomers to the community’s rites and respects the time they need before joining.

Patricia also describes how Smith identified Sam and Ruth as ready to share water when they had only entered the Third Circle. Their subsequent progress through the circles led to their reception into the Nest, and she recounts her own eventual initiation as a fearful but welcoming passage into communal life. These accounts place her bond with Smith within a broader practice: he may recognize readiness and offer water, while Patricia helps newcomers understand what acceptance entails. The original choice she made—accepting the bond without surrendering her beliefs—thus anticipates her later work in a community that welcomes others through trust, instruction, and freely chosen participation.