After I speak to Dad I do my homework. Not all of it, because at this time of year it’s like a bottomless pit of things that should have been done a week ago. Balmoral runs on pressure, like a big steam train you can’t get off once you’re on. Every teacher thinks their subject is the most important, and they get annoyed if you haven’t paid enough attention to their set tasks. They’ve got no idea how much it adds up to across six subjects.

The house is quiet, with Mum and Sam both at soccer. I do my maths exercises and then make grilled cheese on toast with so much French mustard my tongue burns.

Natalia has sent me a link to the TV show she mentioned, Devil Creek. I realise that the billboard I saw on the way home from school just after Yin was taken was for the same show.

The opening credits roll: a girl runs barefoot through the bush at night, her legs and arms painfully scratched, the soundtrack built from driving drums and panic.

I decide I don’t really love it halfway through the first episode. Detective McManus is experienced and professional, but distracted by his messy divorce. His work partner Detective Burns is dedicated and cares too much, but keeps pissing off witnesses with her blunt manner. The people of Devil Creek all have secret lives, but nothing ties together, at least not yet. Everyone is white and every time it seems like the plot might go somewhere, they cut to a confusing dream sequence.

But Emily Blake, the victim, the town’s prettiest girl with the sordid secrets—she gives me chills. The music builds to something sinister when they find her body.

Her nightie is ripped low on her chest and a fly hovers around her face.

The camera zooms in on her pale lips, which are as cracked as the mud she’s lying on. A strand of hair snakes its way into the corner of her mouth, searching for a way in. There are droplets of blood along the actress’s forehead, as pretty as rubies, and her staring eyes wear the reflection of blue sky and clouds above.

Every time they show the autopsy photo, or show Emily Blake when she was alive, or give us her blueish body on a mortuary gurney, I can see the resemblance to Natalia, I see every fallen body on the cover of a crime novel, and I can’t help thinking that everyone wants their teenage girls ruined.

NATALIA

DAY 36

A police car fills our driveway, and when I take a survey of what other gargantuan shifts have taken place in the universe, I see the Baillieus’ front curtains twitch across the road.

Welcome to the show, everyone.