In Jeopardy Read Online Free PDF Page A

noise deafening and piercing, then soar upward, disappearing into the darkening evening. The breeze dances with the mass of gold hair trailing behind this figure. Sapphire eyes flash at Christine’s mind. ‘You’re special, you just don’t know it.’
    The figure holds an enormous silver chalice ornately etched with the scene of a meandering river filled with floating lilies, dolphins and playful fish in the water. A mermaid caught in an oyster shell sails down the river. Still suspended above the earth the figure moves closer, offers Christine a look into the cup she holds. It is filled almost to the brim with water that sparkles like cut glass underfading sunlight. A voice from within the cup speaks, ‘Your sorrow is not as dark as you imagine. Trust that things will turn out better than you expect.’
    The strange being fades to a faintly etched image against the sky before breaking up into indistinguishable cloud.
    Christine follows the path away from the gardens, away from the water and towards the bridge. She stops at a cobblestone cross surrounded by manicured grass. Another figure appears from low clouds rolling across the sky. Hovering above land and over the cross this figure dances above earth’s chaos, detached from man-made drama and misery.
    Wild hair sweeping from behind, she is almost naked except for a purple scarf winding its way around her neck and body. One end floats in the breeze above her the other trails behind her feet. She twirls two wands, one in each hand then points one at Christine. She says, ‘Don’t despair,’ as she dissolves.
    Christine blinks and she’s gone.
    Alone and away from home Christine doesn’t feel angry, doesn’t feel cheated, although she knows she should. She can’t understand that although she has done nothing wrong she has been so wronged. She is lost in a situation she has no control over and knows this is the end of the familiar world.
    She rushes away from the quay filled with crowds waiting for ferries to take them home, crowds strolling into restaurants and bars or into night lit retail hubs to shop. Christine despairs at human suffering and the banalities of life. She wants no more of this. The darkening sky offers her a cloak of invisibility and the anonymity she seeks.
    She returns to the waterfront. Moonlight reflecting on water leaves a path for Christine to follow. Far from crowds and alone she sits on rough damp earth and wraps her coat against the fresheningair. The water rolls in from the bay, hitting the embankment and abandoned fishermen’s pier before being sucked back into the ocean. The wind sings and plays with bands of trees. Beyond the waterfront nocturnal creatures scurry across the ground, into the bush and up scaly tree trunks.
    Bruised and humiliated by Richard’s latest assault Christine is desolate, thinking that when the sun rises she will face Richard’s betrayal in its raw ugliness; naked, exposed and under a microscope. She expects she will become the victim of curious and well-meaning questions. Awkward silences and attempts to spare her feelings will become knives plunging into an already raw wound.
    Then there will be the memory of Richard abandoning her that will refuse to fade. Christine knows that her relationship with Richard is far from over. She knows he isn’t going to show an abandoned wife mercy.
Legal proceedings will be put into place to extract me from his life with as little cost to Richard as possible.
    Standing to the left of a pillar of the harbour Christine peels off her coat, kicks off her shoes, plunges into the water and swims furiously away from the coast without looking back. She dives deep beneath the surface into the water’s blackness. She becomes weightless as she is effortlessly drawn to the dark, empty vortex at the bottom of the ocean.
    The peace is ruptured by a force that grabs Christine and pulls her to the surface. She panics and struggles against something much greater than herself. The