Modern Mary: today she deals with deadlines, efficiency charts and no child left behind. Most days she has barely no time to adjust her gloves before going out and today, tumbling on the wind, has already started as an unmitigated disaster, style wise.

Servants are a vanished breed, blown away by economic change, near slavery replaced by nine to five monotony except for the gilded wealthy.

Which doesn't explain the genteel poverty of the family at her address, the one hiding somewhere behind the wind. She will find them and stop whatever nonsense is going on - her briefing was somewhat vague on the exact nature of that nonsense while still painting a precise picture of the physical, mental, emotional and economic condition of each and every resident of 21242 East Anaheim Boulevard including the cook, more than a little nasty tempered and given to sneaking out to rendezvous with her current factory worker boyfriend of the week - Mary has been in the service long enough; there are always gaps in the file, more now that they no longer employ sweeps as snoops, but reality will out under the pressure of her distortion field on the house, its occupants and environs, if she could just find the house.

Our age is gilded: Newport mansions in Rhode Island reoccupied by silicon and stock manipulators, the newly rich glitteringly flaunting their lifestyles with the famous, and almost everyone looking to save face, or prestige, or just not appear to be poor.

An apt description of the family. On the outside the house looked good, a little crabgrass in the lawn perhaps, but inside.... How could they even afford children, let alone servants? The briefing was silent on the subject and ultimately it didn't matter, economics - macro or micro - was not her job. Father staying home with the kids, mother's job well paying, and both apparently satisfied with the situation. Four children, a bit above average for the time and place, but still within reason, properly deployed at school, soccer, gymboree, piano lessons and playdates or in the case of the twins babbling in the nursery under the magic learn-a-thon mobile.

Her job description wasn't precisely clear on what her job actually was. There was some modern muddling on the subject, an attempt to rewrite history or fiction, or some such, but, she sniffed, she would have none of that. Precision was not needed in a job description, she had her own personal supply of all the precision anyone could ever need. Her distortion field usually took care of the rest. She was there to fix whatever was wrong - economics excepted - and she would, if she ever got there.

She dug in her bag for her GPS, but it seemed as blown by the wind as the rest of her; no amount of clicking, poking, or prodding would produce even a present location, let alone directions to the house, and for all of her ability, she could not fix herself.

The wind still blows. It carries Mary farther and farther away. There is something wrong in our house, but we will have to fix it ourselves.