Santha focused on her breathing, feeling the air at the back of her throat on the in-breath, then exhaled slowly. She did this a few more times before she planted the butt of the crook into the ground and searched the meadow. She strained her eyes, though it was pointless. She had no skill in tracking. The kid could have been in a different part of the forest by now and she’d never know. Pushing the long grass aside with her crook, she trudged through to check by the stream, near the tree line, along the cliff, and any other place the little wretch might hide. The scenery, which had seemed mysterious at first, lost its allure in the discouraging hunt.
She was about to widen her search again when she glimpsed a flash of white within the confines of a circle of rowan trees not sixty feet aw
