She included screenshots of a thread on the Goth Chat page that must have been private. I hadn’t seen it before.

Crow: I think I’ve worked something out. We might have a celebrity in our midst. Of a kind anyway. If PastelPlaything is Penelope Gordon, does that mean Onyx is actually Caleb Wharton? The firebug?

PastelPlaything: Onyx is NOT a firebug. He has reasons of his own for behaving the way he does.

ACantha: Oooh, I’m not sure how to interpret that.

PastelPlaything: Sandulf, this could be sub judice.

Crow: Subjudy-WHAT? Your vocabulary is Impressive, Little Goth Girl. Are you as rich and privileged as your arsonist friend?

Onyx: I am not an arsonist.

PastelPlaything: Onyx is a decent human being who protected me that day and is still trying to protect people.

ACantha: Are you ready for jail?

PastelPlaything: Stop this conversation! There are libel laws you know! Sandulf!!!

Sandulf: These comments are now locked for legal reasons.

Still trying to protect people? What did that mean? Penelope wasn’t talking about herself. I didn’t need protecting. Who else might Caleb love? In despair because no matter how much I scoured the internet, there would always be parts of it I couldn’t see, I sent an email demanding Penelope explain the comments, and tapped my keyboard impatiently when she didn’t reply immediately. Deep in thought, I printed the comments out, checked them again. Onyx was Caleb, caught proclaiming his innocence as he refused to proclaim it in court. How could I turn this into evidence? The kids themselves were talking about law. Stephen might actually be able to help me here.

15

15

DEA TACITA | Goddess of the Dead and Silence

Dea Tacita could be asked to destroy a hated person. She represented the terror of obscurity. A rite could be performed asking her to ‘seal up hostile mouths’.

City traffic had been driven to chaos while police diverted buses and cars around climate change protesters, but eventually I left my car in one of Melbourne’s ridiculously overpriced parking stations and exited to La Trobe Street. Back in the valley, fallen trees had been removed but more kept falling. It was hard to walk down Bourke Street Mall and not expect things to fall. I hadn’t been to Stephen’s legal chambers for years, but nothing fell here and little had changed. The city smelled of wet concrete. Two women in too-small skirts leaned against the wall, smoking. A blob of fresh green chewing gum awaited an unsuspecting shoe. A blue garbage truck lumbered past, mouth exuding the stench of rotting fruit and vomit. A magazine, spine fastened to something in the gutter, flapped half-heartedly in the wind. I could have slipped into the twentieth century.