April 7, 2002


On a high floor of the old Doherty Manor house, nestled away from the world in Donegal County, Ireland, there is a child’s bedroom. The room is currently in a state of changeover. The bedroom was once a guest bedroom, from when grandchildren came over for long visits. The room has a carbon copy in a smaller property in Northern Ireland, less grand than the family home. That room, the whole household of three, is returning to the ancestral homestead.

The room that was left behind has pink wallpaper, like strawberries in cream, with whitewashed wood sideboards. There is a window seat decorated with pink poufs and an impressive stained glass piece, a scene of Siren mermaids against a rock, with harp, lute and song. The bed is adorned with a red velvety comforter and scattered stuffed animals recognizable as owls, unicorns, hippogriffs and cats. Along the spiraled brass headboard are delicate lacey pillows, bordered with a good three inches of frill. In the corner is a hobbyhorse, an exquisitely carved Abraxan with a wide wingspan, set to rocking on curved beams. Where a desk would be placed there is instead an activity table, alongside a dresser with a rotating mirror. Both surfaces have scattered possessions: a music box, hairbrushes, toys, crayons, and seashells. In the closet perpendicular to this dresser, opposite the bed, is clothing for every season. Play clothes, summer dresses, petticoats, thick furred winter over wear. Pressed flowers in picture frames adorn the walls. In spite of these features the room is remarkably sterile and immaculately cleaned for the health of the child that resides inside.

To compare that lost room with the copy in Doherty Manor, you would find the latter in the middle of renovation. Most of the pink wallpaper has been striped from the walls, the dried flowers removed. Gone is the scene of Sirens in stained glass. The stuffed animals are thrown into a corner to await judgment. The closet doors are thrown open, the contents to be organized. The Abraxan rocker is also absent. While the closet of this former guest room contained fewer clothes, the entirety of the wardrobe between these twin rooms is being sorted. A tiny house elf is set at work, almost tripping over its baggy potato sack dressings, eyes barely visible under the cooking pot it wears on its head. It is taking the dresses, both plain and seasonal and fancy, from the lair of mothballs to be repackaged with desiccant and tissue paper in long boxes strewn about the floor.

The house elf hums something under its breath but the two figures in the room are otherwise silent.

A young child sits on the mattress freed from the red velvet. Casey is a scrawny child. Although barely above seven years Casey looks younger and smaller, frail with boney limbs. The only person smaller than Casey is the elf steward, Dingy. Casey is silent. Gargoyles move more often than Casey, who appears to be nearly catatonic. Casey sits uncomfortably in unusual clothes, a buttoned shirt and overalls with shiny buttons, the outfit too new and too stiff. Gone is the long blonde hair with reddish undertones, cropped close to the head in a fresh cut.

Despite the silence in the bedroom, sounds can be heard echoing up from the lower levels. The shouts of raised voices.

”I am putting my foot down on the matter and that is final!” This is Ainbheartach, the drunken old patriarch of the unbelievably rich O’Doherty clan. His low voice is graveled and slurred from many years of gin but what it lacks in tone it makes up for in volume. “You are my firstborn son, Martin, Casey is your firstborn. We’ve waited long enough but there aren’t going to be anymore suitable heirs!”

“You refuse to wait!” This is Martin, his voice sharper yet equally as cross as his father’s. “Maeve is pregnant again. Torna is soon to have another child. If it’s a boy you will have your heir.”

“Torna and Maeve have not had a good track record” Ainbheartach continues. “Their firstborn is their daughter—bless baby Brona nonetheless—but you expect the O’Doherty name to continue through the second born of a second born if Torna is successful with a male offspring? (note that Suanach, the sister born between those brothers, is conveniently forgotten) What’s next, the third born of a third? Fourth of fourth? Onwards down the line of numbers until our name is ground into the mud?”

“I understand that,” says Martin. “I don’t see why you want to pull genealogy now. Yes, I’ve been a failure of a firstborn son to you but you seemed pleased enough to disinherit me when I moved out to marry Darla. But your commands can’t be fulfilled, Casey is my daughter—”

“CASEY CAN BE YOUR SON!” This outburst is cracked and shrill, much like its owner, Ainbheartach’s wife Neasa. “I know you haven’t done a thing about it! Your marriage to that sickly muggle filth is probably the cause of Casey’s condition but that is easily rectified. To keep the O’Doherty name, your firstborn Casey will now be your son.”

“That muggle filth,” Martin shoots back, “Is the only reason I have a first born to begin with! You’re blinded by idiotic tradition! I know you think Casey is the only way to redeem this. It must burn you up inside to use her like—”

“Enough! Martin’s words are again interrupted, this time by his father. “Your marriage with Darla, however deplorable, and offspring are unfortunate but I am willing to look past that. I am not concerned with how diseased the O’Doherty tree gets as long as our name is assured for the future! Would you have us die out, our fortunes squandered on lesser ilk or worse, seized by the goblins and government without any future inheritors? The decision has been made. As long as Casey is under our roof, he is to be conditioned as the eventual successor of our enterprises.”

“Only as long as I am an under your roof!” says Martin. “I can get my house back, you’ll find us packing out by the next morning!”

“Your house?” asks Neasa, her words dripping with evil sarcasm. “This house here, entitled on this deed in my hand? You’ll never leave our house again. Oh, and your accounts at Gringotts have been frozen. We are the head trustees, after all. How far do you think you can go with no work, no gold, a sick muggle wife and Casey? Even if we let you keep that blasted elf steward of his?”

There is silence after these words, Martin apparently speechless. The only other sound to pierce through floors of wood and stone is the shattering of glass, perhaps an expensive brandy. Ainbheartach is next to speak.

“Ho ho, you think you can best me with that withered stick? The Leprechaun wand is our source of fortune and might and its power still aligns with me. Face it, my putrid progeny, you are trapped. But your family is willing to welcome you back into the fold. Even that wife yours. I’m sure there’s no need to spare accommodation since she never leaves the bed so we’ll stick it up in that room by the attic where the roof leaks. I’m sure she’ll find it cozy.”

The argument is won in favor of the elder O’Dohertys. Martin offers one last spat. “You forget, that wand won’t be yours forever. Once we’re hauling your corpse into the grave that wand—”

“—Is going strait to Casey,” Ainbheartach completes. “I don’t plan on dying soon. And once we have educated Casey, and he proves himself, he’ll be allowed to borrow it. You are never going to get your hands on it.”

Silence remains down bellow, the arguers elsewhere. During the debate the child and the house elf have remained silent, Casey continuing his unwavering gaze at the wall, Dingy with his work of packing clothing.

In spite of it all, the elf tries to be cheerful. “Master Casey, Dingy is nearly done with the boxing, then Master Casey can pick a new color for his walls and Dingy shall paint the room.”

Casey does not reply. The elf’s words do seem to trigger an unrelated motion. Lifting his eyes from the worlds unknown past the bare wall, Casey places a hand to his neck. He fiddles for a chain, an amulet under his new clothing, a trinket whose presence is as unfamiliar as the short overalls. Casey lifts up the amulet to peer at the rounded sapphire with a rare pink tinctured defect, enclosed with artful runic silver claspings. An amulet he is to wear for the rest of his life.

Slowly, Casey begins to recognize the world around him, the room’s disheveled appearance at its halfway point of renovations. Now he looks at the elf. “T-Those are my dresses…” Casey begins softly, voice weak from disuse. The first words Casey has spoken in days.

Dingy is crestfallen. The elf can barely comprehend the situation himself and has no idea how to address the matter to his young charge. All Dingy can do is complete his work. “Master Casey has new clothes,” squeaks the elf, indicating a stack of boxes with new, unworn clothing. “Dingy shall put them in the closet for Master Casey after Dingy has removed the dresses.”

It takes some time for Casey to respond to this. “S-S-So,” says Casey in a wispy voice, “those are no longer mine…?”

The elf pauses. “No, Master Casey, those are no longer yours. Master Casey has a raspy throat. Does master want Dingy to fetch him a warm milk?”

It came unexpectedly. There was no discernable change in Casey. Face blank, eyes hollow, a slight twitch of an eyebrow maybe but Casey’s limbs did not move. At once the results of Dingy’s labors, the boxes of dresses, burst into flame. The bonfire roared, flames licking the ceiling.

Dingy is caught right at the edge, hands sore from where the dress he was packing had been engulfed in fire. The elf clings to his pot helmet with both hands, frightened.

“Master Casey!!” shrieks the elf. “Master Casey must stop this!! Fire is bad indoors!!”

There is no reply from Casey, his stoic silent demeanor has returned. He watches the fire burn from expressionless eyes; the light from the burning dresses dancing in Casey’s pupils. There is a crack as Dingy disappears, followed by commotion from downstairs. Dingy reappears, water sopping from buckets nearly as big as himself, casting the contents to put out the fire. Sounds are heard from the hall, the race of people upstairs. Soon the wrinkled crow-like Neasa and red-faced Ainbheartach, bottle of whisky in tow, are seen in the doorway. The younger, slick form of Martin tries to edge a position to peer into the room too. They watch Dingy stamp out the remaining flames, Casey a statue of a vulture from where he gazes from the bed.

“Salazar’s shiny pate!” says Ainbheartach in awe. “Little Casey did that? What stupendous wild magic. What force! Haven’t seen anything like it since Torna blew up the flower bed.”

The smiles from Ainbheartach and Neasa are ones of delight. Only Martin is worried and tries to run to his child.

Ainbheartach blocks the way, “None of that now. Casey has made tremendous decision.” Just now he recognizes the charred remains of the dresses. “I think he’s responding to the changeover without disagreement. Dingpot! Clean up that mess!”

The adults leave. Dingy quakes in a corner, very nervous. After a minute he begins to clean up the soaked and burned clothing.

Casey remains silent.