The Wizard had a name.
None of the people in Harmonica Town knew this. They all called him "The Wizard". Short and simple, but he liked it. He was a wizard, after all.
He had wizarding powers; he could turn a person into a toad, concoct a perfect potion, and even see inside people's minds. Long ago, the townsfolk took his powers for granted; they would only ever visit his house for magical reasons. After a while, the Wizard grew sick of the selfish townspeople; so he shut his "business" down and would never let anyone in.
That's how he stayed for five long years. His door locked, the blinds shut, the lights off. The people of Harmonica Town attempted to contact the Wizard at first, rapping on his door and yelling for him. Every time, the Wizard ignored. The townsfolk eventually gave up after two whole seasons. His house was perfectly quiet.
The Wizard had no human contact for five years. He stayed locked in his house, surrounded by the things he loved most; serums, potions, books of spells. His ancestors had been performing wizardry for thousands of years before him. The island of Castanet had been around longer than he could remember, since his ancestors began their wizardry on that very island.
There was another person like him . . . the Witch Princess. She also stayed locked away in her hut in Fugue Forest, but she would usually come out at night to say hello to everyone in town. Recently, though, the Wizard hadn't heard much from her. He considered that strange, but in all honesty, he didn't really care.
He had never cared much for the Witch Princess. He had learned as a young boy that the Wizard and Witch of Castanet were destined to be together; they would produce the next generation of Wizards.
He had tried to abide by the rules, he really had. As a child, the Wizard and Witch would often play together. They were friends when he was younger, he remembered. Though, as they both grew older, they also grew apart. As hard as the Wizard tried to love the Witch, he couldn't force himself to feel that way.
In his twenty-five years of life so far, the Wizard had never experienced real love. He could not love the Witch Princess; there was something . . . off about her. She was too quirky, too excitable. She was the outgoing type, always wanting to take a risk and meet new people. She never focused on her job.
It was one year in spring when he knew he had failed his ancestors. He had said to himself that he would deal with it and marry the Witch, just to continue the Wizard name. He'd tell the Witch that she would have complete custody of the children. He'd visit them, of course, but he'd never feel any real love for them, as he had never loved the Witch Princess at all. He'd given up his grudge and was about to call the Witch, but she had not answered. That's when he knew that the Witch's spell had gone wrong.
He could've gone out to check on her, but if the Wizard had left his house, the people who lived in Harmonica Town would see him and the process would repeat; they would ask for magical favors and he would get nothing in return. The Wizard knew the Witch was a smart woman; she would figure out how to fix herself in time.
There was no contact from the Witch Princess for approximately a season's time. In that same year, nothing had happened. The Wizard had just admitted that the Witch was not coming back, when she walked through the door.
He knew there was something different about her the first time he saw her. It couldn't have been her brown hair or her plain brown eyes. It couldn't have been that she was one of the only ones who could see the Harvest Sprites. It couldn't have been the confidence she radiated as she rapped on the door and asked very politely, but firmly, if she could come in.
No, the Wizard didn't know what it was, but there was something about her. He had learned that her name was Molly, and she was a new farmer on the island. He didn't know what he felt when he wanted to learn more about her.
All she wanted, after the Wizard agreed to let her in his home, was the information to bring back the witch to ring the Green Bell. It was there he knew that the Harvest Goddess had recruited her to revive the land, and not the Wizard, like she said she would.
The island had been fine when the Wizard had first shut himself out five years ago. But as seasons passed, the island slowly started to deteriorate. The Harvest Goddess, the Witch Princess, even the Harvest King had tried to make contact with the Wizard to ask him to revive the land, but he was done with taking requests from people.
Now he felt guilty that he wasn't the one to revive the land, and it had to be that commoner, Molly, to be the one.
Putting that aside, the Wizard hadn't been all that welcoming to her at first. He'd expected her to ask him for a magical request of sorts, so when she wanted the information about the Green Bell, it was a shock to him. Molly was not like the others in Harmonica Town. She had a pure heart.
After she had collected the ingredients for the Wizard to make the potion, she didn't visit as much as she did before. She'd drop in every once in a while to say hello, but it felt like a piece of the Wizard was missing.
It was not until he saw Molly kissing that cook that he knew what he felt.
The Wizard had loved her. No, not loved . . . love. He still feels the same way he did every time she came in to give him an ingredient or to say a quick hello. His heart fills with rage and jealousy every time he sees her kissing that boy outside his window.
Molly had almost never come in to see the wizard after she had started dating the cook. The visits had been lessened to only about once every two seasons. But he still feels his stomach start to churn, the urge to stay with her and be by her side. The Wizard still loves Molly.
He would never tell her. He would never admit the pain he felt deep inside that time when he had asked her for help in getting his crystal ball back, and when he told her the favor would be to look inside the heart of the person she was interested in and she asked for Chase, his stomach had plummeted and his heart filled with jealousy when he saw that Chase felt an extreme love for the farmer. Molly had thanked the wizard and went off to be with Chase again.
The wizard had never experienced love before Molly came along. Falling in love had ruined him; it pained him to look out the window and watch the person he loved, love someone else. He still thought about her every day, still felt the longing to stay with her and raise a family.
It was two years later when the Witch Princess had come to him and told him they had to continue the generation of Wizards. He had agreed, of course, and he visited his children like he said he would, but he never once forgot about Molly.
And so he still sat by his window every day, watching Molly, the girl he still loved, sit with Chase by the inn and hold her two children in her arms. He sat watching her, for he knew that the deep void in his heart would never truly go away. He had no one else to love, no one else to care about. He would forever love Molly, even if she had forgotten about the Wizard who lived in Harmonica Town, the one that locked his door and drew his blinds and turned the lights off.
The Wizard's name was Gale. His father had told him that he was not to tell anyone his true name unless he felt an extreme love or feeling of caring towards someone.
Gale had been planning to tell Molly his name. But he knew as he watched Molly play with her family by the sea that his name would remain hidden for the rest of eternity.