The Ghost in the Water (2.2)

By Noel Osualdini

Shauna Clarke has escaped the clutches of her unborn baby's father. Will Refuge provide shelter for her and her baby? The town does seem very welcoming after all...
Front cover (C) Will Jacques 2015 "Alone and Showing"

Part of "The Refuge Collection", all author and publisher profits go to charity to support real-life refugees.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noel Osualdini
• Release date: Dec 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311033444

Book preview

the Ghost in the Water

Part of The Refuge Collection

by Noel Osualdini

Copyright © 2015 Noel Osualdini

Published by Steve Dillon

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please purchase your own copy.

Acknowledgements

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author,

the artist, contributors and publishers

Thanks most of all to the Sanctuary Australia Foundation for the great work in support of real-life

refugees escaping real-life horrors

http://www.sanctuaryaustraliafoundation.org.au

Front Cover Alone and Starting to Show

© Copyright Will Jacques, 2015

Prologue

There is a (fictitious?) town called Refuge, unlike any other, yet like so many. The people of Refuge have stories to make your hair curl. Oh, and they are so hungry to share their tales with you…

The Ghost in the Water

by Noel Osualdini

Number 27 Marsh Street was a block of town houses, and Shauna Clarke was moving into the most run-down of them, naturally. Right at the end, naturally: the last townhouse in the last building before the paved road ended and a gravel path meandered up the hill towards Refuge’s rain-obscured cemetery.

She lollopped through the drizzle, her oversized travel bag weighing down one shoulder, and stood in the relative shelter of the tiny porch. She pushed her fingers into a wet pocket, searching for the key she’d been given at the real estate office. In her enormous shirt and loose jeans, her belly could still be mistaken for the beginnings of a paunch. More likely she’d be frowned upon by the other girls for not looking after her shape than to gain the attention of clucky middle-aged women. But soon she’d have to switch to sloppy tracksuits, give in to her changing shape and the bubba growing low in her belly. She wondered how long it would be before the older women of the town would ask questions about the baby’s father and she’d become a reviled welfare mother.

Perhaps Refuge wouldn’t be like that; perhaps people would have more to occupy them than worrying about the pregnant girl who’d moved in up the street. She’d fit in, she told herself: she’d go out