Mistress Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a row.
This nursery rhyme has always bothered me a bit. Perhaps it’s the allusions to Queen Mary, aka “Bloody Mary,” who shamelessly beheaded Protestants. But it may also be just the simple fact that this girl has a secret. A secret that binds her in her own world, separate from the rest of us.

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