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.