Taylor Swift holds a position of saintly reverence in the halls of western femininity. She’s generous, charitable, a hopeless romantic, a creator of beauty — an icon of virtue and wholesomeness in an age that tolerates such things less and less.

So it’s all the more dreadful that Swift and her fans have become targets of terror.

First was a morbid knife attack that struck a Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England on July 29, robbing three girls of life: six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar. Eight children and two adults were injured.