“You’ll be very comfortable here,” Mrs. Patterson promised as she guided her newest resident through the rambling house. “We have many activities to keep you busy and your thoughts from where they shouldn’t be. There’s woodcarving, and tailor work, and blacksmithing—quenching only in oil, mind.”
“Yes,” Mr. Conway said, staring around with the vague expression of someone whose thoughts were elsewhere, and probably where they shouldn’t be. “They told me . . . no water?”
“Very little water,” Mrs. Patterson corrected him. “We can’t avoid it entirely, of course. But all our laundry is done in town, and you’ll clean yourself by scrubbing with a dry flannel; it works much better than you might think, so long as your clothes are fresh. Drink is weak beer and strong tea. Most men adjust quite quickly.” She forbore to mention that the food was very bland. Shipping spices to the middle of the New Mexico Territory was expensive, though it might become less so as the railways continued to expand. And apart from their monthly injections, of course, the men could not have salt.
She led Mr. Conway to his room and helped him unpack his things, then tucked him up for a nap. He fell asleep immediately. Outside his door, she hesitated, wondering if it would be all right to have a mid-afternoon snack.
Instead she went to the porch and gazed over the grounds. The gardens were quite nice, for something that consisted mostly of cacti and interesting rocks. It took effort to create a pleasant home as far from water as possible, but Mrs. Patterson was determined to give these poor souls the best future they could have.
Damned mermaids, she thought, though she would never use such language out loud. So many sailors drowned, and her residents tied to their beds when it rained so they wouldn’t hurt themselves. All because those fish-women had no restraint.
Not like Mrs. Patterson and her staff. They knew how to take what they needed with a lady’s grace. These former sailors might be confined to the New Mexico desert, might subsist on strong tea and bland food for the rest of their lives, never going near anything they might drown themselves in . . . but there were compensations. Chief among them, frequent dreams featuring the sort of ecstasy one didn’t discuss in polite company.
Sometimes the men dreamed it was a mermaid they were with, though how that was supposed to work with a fish tail, Mrs. Patterson didn’t know and didn’t want to. What mattered was that she had created a safe haven for siren-touched men and succubi alike, solving two problems in one stroke.
She ought to let Mr. Conway settle for a day or two before she visited him. But this was his life now, and besides, she was feeling peckish.
Humming to herself, Mrs. Patterson went to have a snack.
About the author:
Marie Brennan is the Hugo-winning and Nebula and World Fantasy Award-nominated author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent, the Onyx Court, other fantasy series, several poems, and over ninety short stories. As half of M.A. Carrick, she’s also written the Rook and Rose trilogy. Find her at swantower.com and on Patreon.
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