The house, if it was a house and not an illusion, stood in the clearing well below an outcropping of rocky cliffs and sandwiched between dense woods on either side and the coast. It was a natural, protective, box and James Faraday was having trouble believing he was seeing it at all.
The house itself didn't seem overly impressive and looked from the outside as the kind of tacky mansion the rich types built trying to impersonate classic European-style estates. It vaguely reminded James of a castle, but more in the vein of Downton Abbey than anything medieval.
Thing was, it shouldn't have been there. This side of Sunstone Island was uninhabited and near impossible to reach. There were no roads here, no way in or out that didn't include a boat to navigate choppy waters to the mainland. But this wasn't a mere double-wide with a dock like other isolated island homesteads. It was a mansion.
How the hell was it even built?
The midday sky was overcast and rather gloomy, as was typical in the Pacific Northwest and James took a moment to drink water and dab away some sweat from his face. This was only the second day of his backpacking trip and he was surprisingly tired despite what his athletic frame would suggest. His legs burned from the last incline that brought him to this view.
Slowly, steadily, he approached the house, moving into the woods to get a closer look.
There was no fence line he could ascertain and he roughly realized he was approaching the rear of this house. A pair of round, two-story towers jutted from the back corners, connected to the house by a second-story walkway and top with conical roofs. James, however, was focused on the windows on the main floor. Not just windows. It was a glass box attached to the rear of the house reminiscent of a greenhouse.
He approached cautiously now, trying to keep concealed in the edge of the woods. The treeline ended a mere fifty feet before the floor-to-ceiling glass of the greenhouse and James realized that inside the greenhouse was a giant swimming pool. It took up almost the whole footprint of the room except for a small area that held bedroom furniture, including a bed whose frame looked vaguely like it had once been the bow of a boat.
There was a splash in the pool and James ducked instinctively behind a tree. There was a woman in the pool and James noticed two things about her at the same time: She was naked and she was beautiful. There was another thing about the swimming woman; she appeared to be wearing some sort of blue-green skirt as she swam. But that wasn't quite right, not a skirt. He found himself taking more steps, squinting to see better.
It was mermaid fins, he realized. She was wearing mermaid fins. He remembered seeing performers at the city aquarium in the half-body suit, holding their breath and twirling around the artificial coral reefs much to the delight of every little girl in the audience.
"What are you doing?" A voice from behind him said.
He turned, or rather jumped around, startled at the woman's voice.
"Sorry," he stammered. "I didn't mean to snoop," he said, putting his hands up. "I didn't realize anyone lived out here. My curiosity got the better of me."
The woman standing before him was also beautiful, despite the scowl of suspicion. She had long, chestnut hair, loosely braided with silver rings. She wore a vintage-looking green and black dress, adorned with a leather apron, and rugged leather boots. It was a decidedly practical outfit to be picking berries in, which James guessed she'd been doing, given the basket hanging off her elbow. James thought she looked something like a cross between a hippie and a gypsy.
"Did you think that maybe those that took the trouble to live all the way out here, did so to avoid the prying eyes of strangers?"
"You're absolutely right. Again, I'm sorry. I'll just be on my way." James turned to walk away.
The woman sighed. "Hold on."
James looked behind him.
"I'm sorry for being rude," The woman shifted her basket to her other arm. "It's clear you meant no harm. Would you like to come in for a spell? Fill up your water? There are fresh apples and bread."
"That's very generous of you but I'm okay. I was just traveling through. Again, sorry for bothering you."
She pointed to his backpack, "Just traveling through? An island?"
James shrugged. "I was planning on making camp on the north shore. Has the best views. Or so I'm told."
"If that's the case then we'll be neighbors." She hooked her arm through his and smiled demurely up at him, "I insist on meeting my neighbors. And it has been a long time since we've had guests. Please, allow me to apologize for being so standoffish."
The last time a woman had held his arm like that was shortly before the fight that led to their eventual breakup. The woman before him was nothing like his ex. She was curvy and kind-looking and smelled like lavender and sage.
"Okay," he relented. "I guess I could use a rest."
"Glad to hear it." She smiled again. "I'm Gwendolen. My friends call me Gwen."
"Good to meet you. I'm James. My friends don't call me Jim."
That elicited a small chuckle from Gwen and he let her lead him to one of the backdoors of the house. He put his backpack down in the mudroom and followed Gwen's example when she kicked off her boots.
The house's interior was just as strange as the outside.
The house seemed a contradiction in terms: it was large, a mansion really, but it was also intimate. From the mudroom, there was a short hallway, then a sort of main room dominated by a grand piano, then he was in the kitchen. It was large, and expansive, but also cozy. Dry herbs hung over the window by the sink. A mortar and pestle sat on one counter.
Gwen put her basket on the kitchen counter and began unpacking it.
"You have a lovely home here," James said, hoping he sounded polite.
"Thank you," Gwen replied. "Please, have a seat. Tell me about your travels." She motioned to a large oak table that looked like it ought to be in a Viking's hall. He sat in one of the equally out-of-place chairs and watched Gwen busy herself in the kitchen.
"Oh, it's nothing too exciting," he said. "This was just supposed to be a school thing that I extended a bit. I'm doing graduate work on environmental impact markers, so I've been taking soil samples, measurements of the area, that sort of thing. I figured these islands could give me some decent findings as they're more isolated and, hopefully, less impacted."
Gwen nodded. "We are that. Isolated, I mean." She set a plate of food in front of him and a glass of water and then sat next to him turning to face her guest. Sure enough, there was fresh bread, sliced apples, and some of the blackberries she'd just brought in. "So you're a scientist? I'd say it's rare to see your type so far away from books and labs."
James laughed and nodded, "Believe it or not, I hate lab work." He took a plump blackberry and popped it into his mouth. The juice was dense and sweet; much more flavorful than anything he could find in a grocery store. He practically moaned. "These are. Wow. Just wow." He tried the bread and apples and was equally blown away.
"Glad you like them." Gwen smiled warmly. "I wish I could say I had a hand in them but that's all nature's bounty."
There was something strange about this beautiful woman, James realized. Her speech and mannerisms were peculiar, even odd. The phrase 'old world' came to mind. She looked to be in her thirties, and she moved with a steady grace that women his age just didn't seem to possess. That and he hadn't once seen the glimpse of a cell phone. Her attention was all on him. It made him feel exposed and more than a little awkward. Her eyes, a deep green, seemed to look into him.
"So," he stammered, "is it just you out here?"
Gwen smiled again, "No. My sisters are here too. We tend to like our solitude, our . . . privacy."
James felt his face flush. "Again, I'm really sorry about that. I guess I thought I saw a mermaid in your pool?"
Gwen raised an eyebrow. "A mermaid?"
"Yes?" The new voice said, coming from behind him. He turned and saw the same woman from the pool. She was wrapped in a colorful towel. Her blonde hair, streaked pink and teal, was damp and pulled back. She was even more gorgeous up close. "I thought I heard voices!" she said in happy excitement. "You didn't tell me you were having guests!"
Gwen looked at her sister with a bemused expression. "James, this is Asari or just Ash. Ash, this is James. James says he thought he saw a mermaid."
"Really?" The blonde girl asked, surprised. "Where?"
"In our pool."
"Oh, I was just swimming around."
Honestly, James couldn't see the resemblance at all. Gwen was dark-haired and voluptuous while Ash was tall, athletic, and toned. Her long firm legs highlighted someone who was very active.
"Sorry," James said. "I sort of stumbled into this place. She invited me in for a break from hiking."
Ash nodded, knowingly. "She gave you bread, didn't she? She's always giving people bread."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "Oh, just a little bit."
"I don't know what you put in that but it was amazing," James said.
"If she gives you bread that means she likes you," Ash said.
Now it was Gwen's turn to blush. "Hush now, Ash. I was just being neighborly. Why don't you show our guest around?"
"We don't get a lot of guests," Ash said, instantly enthusiastic. "Would you like a tour? Can I give him a tour?"
Gwen sighed as if indulging a child. "Sure. But don't scare the poor boy."
"Yay, tour!" Ash actually clapped in her excitement. "Come. Come!" She practically pulled James to his feet, who looked back at Gwen in confusion.
It was a jarring and absolutely bizarre turn of events from being in the wilderness just twenty minutes ago, his thoughts on where he'd collect his next soil sample to being led through a mansion by a hottie wearing nothing but a towel.
"So over here we have the clock made by Ferdinand Berthoud. Lenore, that's our other sister, said he was a big deal. And here we have a print by Albrecht Durer. He's german. He sketched Gwendolyn. They were a thing, you know."
The etching print depicted a naked woman riding some sort of lion-dragon hybrid. It looked like something you could have done at a Renaissance fair, where a local artist draws a quick picture of your face on a knight's body or something. This was much more detailed, however.
