Edie was panic-stricken. 'I shouldn't have let them…I never should have let her go off on her own, a mite like that.' Anxiety made her quite articulate.
'She can't have gone far,' soothed Emma. 'We'll spread out, keep calling her.'
Would Donna, triumphant at having escaped finding so far, keep quiet in whatever hiding-place she found? She was so small that it would be hard to see her if she kept still.
They spread out, calling. Down the lane, calling at the other houses, going back as far as Rook Cottage, even penetrating the wood and searching it sketchily, without real hope of finding her there. Edie became progressively more alarmed, more tearful. Even Tracy was now worried. Emma began to wonder, secretly, if she ought not to ring Ross and get a more organised search party out, for it would soon be dark, and Donna was so small.
Then she saw her, in the centre of a field, unaware of anything but pleasure, picking dandelion clocks and blowing them to the four winds, chanting incomprehensibly to herself as she did so.
Relief swamped Emma. She shut her eyes, breathing a prayer of gratitude. When she opened them, relief turned to frozen terror as she saw something else—something she had not noticed at first, absorbed only in the sight of Donna unharmed.
On the other side of the field, his back to the playing child, stood a massive, barrel-ribbed bull, head lowered, staring across the fields towards the wood.
Emma bit her lip, thinking fast. She dared not call out to Donna. Any sound would certainly arouse the bull's attention, the last thing she wanted to do. She must go to get Donna herself, as softly as she could. She advanced to the gate. How had Donna got into the field? Slid through the bars? Or had she, too, climbed over?
Carefully, Emma negotiated the five-barred gate and began walking slowly and silently through the grass towards Donna.
She was almost at Donna's side when the child looked up. A cry of welcome rose to the child's lips, but Emma shook her head fiercely, her finger to her lips in silent warning. Donna's face lit up. She giggled. No doubt she thought it was an extension of the game she had been playing with Tracy and Robin. Emma picked her up, turned and began to tiptoe away towards the gate.
The malevolence of Fate struck a moment later, while she and Donna were still a long way from safety.
Two crows flew over, quarrelling. One gave a loud shriek of rage and defiance, and Donna laughed.
Emma gave a look of agony over her shoulder, and saw the bull slowly turn, saw the little red-rimmed eyes flare with incredulous offence as it took them in, the nostrils flare and steam, the great head lower.
She began to run, hampered by Donna's weight. Donna, unaware still of the danger behind them, giggled and patted Emma's face encouragingly. Fear accelerated Emma's pulse, gave unknown strength to her legs and lungs. She ran as she had never run before, clutching Donna protectively. Behind her came the bull, gathering speed as his massive weight thundered down upon them. Soon she could hear him.
His breath sounded agonisingly loud. Or was that her own breath, coming so painfully?
Clutched against her, Donna could not see the bull, but she suddenly seemed to become aware of the danger, perhaps in some peculiar telepathic leap between their two minds. The little body grew rigid. The little hands clutched fearfully.
'All right…' Emma panted reassuringly, feeling far from certain that they would reach the gate. 'Don't be afraid, darling.'
The gate blurred in front of her. She flung herself upward, Donna held forward out of all danger.
Afterwards she never could remember exactly how she climbed the gate. One moment she was on the wrong side, the bull bearing down upon her. The next she was falling forward, hands out in an effort to stop herself, but at least safely on the right side of the gate with the bull swerving away, angrily cheated, on the other side.
Head swimming, lungs rasping, she reached for Donna. 'Are you all right, darling?'
But Donna was laughing. 'Emma all dirty!'
A car screeched to a halt beside them. Dazedly, Emma saw Ross leap out, come at a run, his face pale. He knelt beside her, looked from one to the other, looked at the bull snorting and pawing the muddy ground in the field beyond.
'My God, what happened?'
'Don't ask…' Emma tried to laugh, wondering if that was really her own blood pouring down her sleeve, and where it could be coming from.
'You've cut your arm,' he said, raising it to inspect the wound.
'Only a graze,' she said, aware with astonishment that for some impossible reason it gave her a pang of pleasure to see his head bent to look at her, his eyes resting on her without hostility.
'The cow ran at us,' Donna said waveringly.
'Did it, indeed?' said Ross in grim tones.
Emma looked up at him, grimaced. 'My fault. I'm sorry—I should have stayed with her all the time.'
'I know how it happened,' he said. 'Mrs Pat rang me. I came back at once. It was nobody's fault—children will wander off, and no one can watch three children at once.'