Mary Mary quite contrary,

How does your sex life go?

With silver bells all attached to chains

and pretty girlies all in a row row row, and

pretty girlies all in a row.

 

Be. Discerning. Say's. Mary.

Enjoy this my true Fairy Tale.

Chapter One

 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Mary Louise Halford flipped the page of the children's book of fairy tales she had discovered in the derelict outbuildings of her employer, Lord Markome-Smith.

Mary needed to keep up the appearance of normalcy at work if she was to retain her employment at the big house. She had located an old dilapidated shed, tucked away by the estates far wall, screened and surrounded by trees. It was in this secret but quite scary place ,especially at night, that she slept and lived, the sun woke her early enough to sneak out of the grounds and arrive as though she had come from the nearest village, thus keeping up appearances.

Mary read the first line of Little Jack Horner, who sat in a corner, eating... Mary was hungry and reading about curds and whey was definitely not the way forward. She flipped to another page, cast a wary eye upwards to the dark clouds and wondered if she was going to get wet. She flipped another page and spread before her was a bright cheerfully coloured fair ground. She read the title, are you going to strawberry fair, she wished that she was, but then the rain started.

 

***

 

Mary had been very lucky up to this point in her life; she had been completely spoilt, she had enjoyed the very best of everything all provided by her parents. She had been well educated, though she was not the most popular of girls in the school she attended, but she also wasn't the most disliked either: so things had been ok overall.

From senior school she had lived a life of freedom without restrictions, her daddy could refuse her nothing, and she would accept everything he offered and if he didn't offer her something she wanted, well she could wrap him around her little finger and get whatever it was that she desired.

Her life though had changed from happy spoilt brat to girl in the midst of extreme sadness. Her world had collapsed around her ears over the last few months and it seemed to be still degenerating further. She had lost her parents to a drunk driver, who was also uninsured and banned from driving.

She had been kicked out of her home by the mortgage company, who insisted that as there was no insurance, and the bills were not being paid, that they would reclaim and sell the property to cover their losses. Mary was made homeless; her father had lots of pension cover, but very little life insurance; so there was nothing to provide for Mary. According to her father's solicitor, there were a number of debts and very little in the way of assets to pay them, and so she should expect no inheritance of note from the estate for her. It had been the solicitor who had suggested that she try to seek work and a new home, and to provide for her own future, something Mary had little idea of how to do.

She had purchased a tent; she had gathered together just enough loose change to open a postal address box so that she could get a job. She lived in her tent, in hiding and in the woods alone. She at last found employment of a sort working as a maid for his lordships family, and some day in the not too distant future she would get her first ever pay check. Until that time she had to scrounge or borrow whatever she needed, which was everything from food to washing materials.

Thank God for the job was all Mary could think, and having discovered the shed she chose to live there not under canvas. She did what she could to clean the shed up and it was during one bout of cleaning up that she found the book of fairy tales, which she read avidly to pass the time when she was not working at the big house. Somehow the book with its detailed colourful pictures seemed to bring her a feeling of inner peace and deep contentment, whenever she picked it up.

 

***

 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, she heard a high pitched child like voice singing. She listened for the next verse but it never came. 'Quite contrary' flitted in her mind as she thought of her namesake; if I was you, and you were me, then you would know what contrary feels like! Mary was feeling sorry for herself and the book of nursery rhymes was doing little to cheer her up today despite its pretty pictures, for the first time since she had found it and brushed of the gathered dust the book failed to cheer her up or even comfort her.

The voice returned, still high pitched, still child like, still invisible and in some strange way now taunting her.

"Come, Mary, come and play, learn what contrary really means, come visit and stay, enjoy your new life to the full, learn to accept what you are given, come, Mary, come!"

The voice repeated, Mary felt her legs react; her hands push down as she stood up, the voice called to her directly and she responded, she answered to its demand despite the rain and the strangeness of the situation.