A few years went by.  Unity’s parents occasionally dropped hopeful hints that she might like to come home.  Orla’s parents banned her from doing things almost as quickly as she thought up ways to do it anyway without them finding out.  Ellen went to live with her dad for a bit, and Amy found herself thinking about the tree whenever she worried about making a mistake.

And then there was Irene.

Irene’s father was at his wit’s end.  He’d tried to find other people to take her off his hands.  He’d looked everywhere.  He’d even tried to track down Irene’s mother, who’d made it clear long ago that she didn’t want to be found.  But it seemed as though he was stuck with her.  It was like being shackled to a vicious animal.

So one night- one of those nights when Irene actually came home instead of sleeping in the park down the road- he just snapped.  He’d helped a friend of his with some building work a few weeks back (Irene having laughed in his face when he’d tried to get her to do it), and he still had a brick hammer lying around.

Irene saw him coming, and ran.  She ran out of the house, through the dark streets, over fences and hedges…. And she found herself running towards the hill, and the Witch’s Tree.

Irene didn’t get as many opportunities to socialise as most girls her age, but she’d heard the stories, here and there.  They’d taken on a whole new life when word had got around about Amy and Ellen.

The tree, when it saw her approach, wondered what to do.  Irene was one of the girls conceived on the one particular night, after all.  She was just as likely to be the one to destroy it as any of the others.  And here she was, jumping up to it and climbing its branches.

And yet…

At about ten yards from the tree, Irene’s father tripped over a stray root.  He went flying, and so did his hammer, which came down right on his head and killed him instantly.

It was Amy, walking past the hill on her way to school the next morning, who first saw what had happened.  She found Irene clinging to the upper branches of the tree, coaxed her down and took her back to hers to call the cops and have a decent meal.  This was another thing her parents said she’d done wrong, but this time, she found it hard to take them seriously.

(To be continued)