Chapter Twenty-Two

By the time the second corporate group turned up at the roller door, Ruth had developed a script.

“Welcome to Mayfield. There seems to have been an error with your booking platform. We’re not affiliated with that provider. You’ll need to contact them for refunds. We’re deeply sorry.”

The faces staring back were unimpressed — thirty-year-old consultants in logo jackets and expensive sneakers, their HR representative muttering darkly about “brand misalignment.”

Eventually they shuffled away, but not before someone photographed the roller door, the studio sign and the street address.

Sally knew exactly where those images would end up:

• Google reviews
• LinkedIn complaints
• quiet group chats

Another stain spreading slowly across Mayfield’s reputation.

The inbox remained haunted.

Misdirected invoices arrived in triplicate, then vanished before Sally could screenshot them.

Booking notifications flickered and disappeared.

Refund requests surfaced from classes that did not exist.

Then, one night, Stripe flagged a suspicious transfer attempt.

An unfamiliar bank account.

Someone had tried to redirect studio payments.

The pit in Sally’s stomach deepened into something colder.

This was no longer chaos.

This was intrusion.

She stayed awake until dawn moving through half-locked dashboards and compromised recovery systems.

Every reset redirected to Tracey’s alias.

At 5:12 a.m., lit only by the laptop glow, Sally whispered:

“She’s stolen the keys to the house.”

The teenagers became watchful after that.

The eldest hovered nearby folding washing and rinsing mugs.

The youngest delivered legal commentary over Weet-Bix.

“Section 478 of the Fair Work Act covers misrepresentation to the employer’s detriment.”

Milk dribbled down their chin.

“Potential imprisonment. Civil penalties too.”

Ruth looked across the table slowly.

“I could kiss you.”

The child shrugged.

“I read things.”

Ruth herself had entered a new operational phase.

She carried a manila folder swollen with highlighted legislation and bookmarked regulations.

Sometimes Sally caught her muttering clauses while scrubbing glaze buckets.

“Adverse action. Misrepresentation. Coercion.”

Each phrase landed harder than the last.

As though Ruth were constructing armour from administrative language.

The KC husband began appearing at the studio more regularly too.

Quiet.

Measured.

Carrying the unnerving calm of someone accustomed to courtrooms.

He asked questions Sally should have asked weeks earlier.

“When exactly was the recovery email changed?”

“Do we have screenshots of the attempted transfer?”

“Which systems were compromised first?”

Sally stumbled through partial answers.

The KC simply nodded.

“Then we build the timeline.”

Not dramatic.

Not furious.

Just steady.

And somehow steadiness felt more powerful than outrage.

The fake classes kept arriving.

“Clay for Grief.”

“Wheel Therapy with Wine.”

“Mindful Clay and Connection.”

One afternoon two women arrived clutching vouchers for a grief workshop.

They looked fragile in the particular way grief makes people fragile.

When Ruth explained the booking was fraudulent, both women cried quietly.

Sally nearly cried with them.

The next morning a mother wheeled her disabled son into the studio for an “inclusive NDIS pottery morning.”

Her relief when she entered the room made the truth unbearable.

When Ruth explained, the mother remained painfully kind.

“It’s not your fault.”

But Sally heard something else entirely:

You built the glass house she shattered.

At night the stress turned physical.

Hot flushes.

Nausea.

Vomiting at three in the morning while the dog sat anxiously outside the bathroom door.

Sometimes she lay awake scrolling through social media in the dark.

Videos about narcissistic parents.

Trauma.

Parentified children.

Generational harm.

Every clip attached itself briefly to her own life.

Was she damaging the children simply by surviving badly?

The thought hollowed her out.

Meanwhile Tracey’s campaign escalated.

TikToks appeared featuring doctored emails and alleged “staff complaints.”

Comments accumulated underneath:

“Classic gaslighter.”

“Unsafe workplace.”

“Never trust boutique studios.”

Sally wanted to respond.

Ruth forbade it immediately.

“Every reply is oxygen.”

Instead Ruth assembled chronologies, screenshots and statutory declarations.

The KC reviewed everything with red pen precision.

“Every misrepresentation strengthens the case.”

Outside the studio, though, reputation continued bleeding away.

Google reviews multiplied.

Parents whispered at school pickup.

Other Brunswick studios began watching Mayfield carefully.

One afternoon a mother stood at the roller door with folded arms and said quietly:

“It just doesn’t feel safe anymore.”

The word landed physically.

Unsafe.

Tracey’s language now echoed through strangers.

Sally began cleaning obsessively.

Benches.

Glaze jars.

Shelves.

If the physical room became immaculate enough, perhaps the invisible contamination would retreat.

It didn’t.

Every morning brought fresh phantom bookings and fresh damage to untangle.

By Friday evening Sally sat slumped at the bench with red-rimmed eyes.

Ruth placed two mugs of tea beside her.

“We will win.”

Sally shook her head slowly.

“She’s turned the language of care into a weapon.”

Ruth’s mouth tightened.

“Then we remind people that law still matters.”

The turning point arrived quietly.

One night Sally opened a fresh notebook and began writing.

• Change bank signatories
• Reclaim domain access
• Secure systems with two-factor authentication
• Separate all recovery emails
• Document everything

For the first time in months, the list was not emotional.

It was structural.

Systems.

Boundaries.

Rules that held.

Her hand steadied slightly as she wrote.

Somewhere beneath the exhaustion, resolve had begun rebuilding itself.

Tracey had cracked the mirror.

But perhaps shattered things could still become sharp.

The dog sighed heavily at her feet.

Sally buried one hand in his fur.

“This isn’t the end. Not yet.”