Strange Fruit

Don’t go into the walled garden.

Don’t go up to the main house unless asked.

Don’t be around when the owners have guests.

These three rules had been laid out for Tina when she had taken on the job of Grounds Keeper and Handy Woman for the Coleridge family. The weather beaten old man who had given her the tour and laid out these rules had added a few extras.

Don’t ask questions,don’t look too hard at things and most importantly of all.

Don’t hang around at night.

Tina had nodded and gone along with it, these kinds of rules where nothing new for her. She had worked on large estates before and had had plenty of strange rules to deal with.

The Coleridge family, which at this point consisted of a father rarely seen, mother hardly heard and two daughters who seemed to barely exist, came from money so old it had its roots back in England. The grounds of the house where mostly given over to public gardens with the exception of a small area of walled garden at the side of the house.

Tina had seen the family members going in and out of the garden a few times during the days and her curiosity gnawed at her. Wanting to know just what was hidden behind those walls.

For a while she thought it might be of some kind, that was until she broke the final rule.

Don’t hang around at night.

She hadn’t meant to stay past the end of the work day. A burst pipe had managed to undermine one of the greenhouses and she had spent the whole day scrambling to save as many of the sensitive plants as she could. So wrapped up in her own work had she been that the sun had set without her even noticing.

The work finally done she had picked up her tools and headed for the work shed which was just beyond the Walled Garden.

The night was silent, only the sound of her own feet crunching across the gravel to keep her company as she trudged towards the shed. Until that was, she heard the sound of the gate to the Walled Garden creaking open.

Looking back on it she didn’t know why she peeked around that corner, the curiosity that had been building up finally took hold of her as she leant around the corner to see who was going in or coming out.

The figure that stepped out of the gate was definitely female, even in the moonlight no one could mistake the tall, hourglass figure for male. Of course any doubt was whipped away when she noticed the state that the figure was in.

The woman's dress, that once may have been a fine evening gown of black satin, had been torn open straight down the middle. Leaving her breasts and sex exposed to the night. She didn’t seem to be wearing any shoes and her long black hair seemed to be matted down as though wet or greasy.

Tina watched as the women staggered away from the gate, letting it slam shut behind her. Her legs shaking as she made her way towards the main house. From this distance it had been impossible to tell if it had been one of the daughters or the mother, the three of them looked nearly identical.

Tina waited until the sound of the woman's footsteps faded away. The gate looked like it might be open still, part of her wanted to just keep walking. Forget what she saw and get home for the night, for all she knew there could still be others in the Walled Garden.

Yet the desire to learn the secrets hidden within pulled at her as she stared at the door.