The tone of the story was supposed to be this flat. So, please don't mind.
They called him the Wisdom Man. They called him the Mystery Man. Nobody knew his name. Other had asked, but he never told them. Nobody knew where he came from. No one knew his face because he was always covered with bandages. No one knew how he died. He was the third oldest ghost in the house. Some said he was killed by Thaddeus, some said he was the second owner of the house and he killed himself, and some said he was an exorcist and was killed during an exorcism.
Only he knew every secret of the house. He knew what happened to every ghost here and the answer to every question in this house. His life was tied to the house way before he was dead.
His story began in the mid 1910s, when he fell in love with his sister.
No, he wasn't uneducated and they didn't come from a Southern Zombie Redneck Torture Family. Grew up in an upper middle class family in Philadelphia, he was well-taught, an architect student. He knew it was wrong, but love was love. It's not something he could hide in his heart forever and the feeling was not one-sided.
At night, she could sneak into his room and cuddle until they were asleep. Maybe it started when they were kids. When she was scared of the monster under her bed, he would cuddle her and tell the imaginary monster to "go away". Though they didn't do anything more than cuddling, it was mutual.
The real heartbreak happened when she turned twenty. A famous doctor met her at her birthday party. The doctor fell for her. Who wouldn't? She was known as the prettiest girl in town.
When the time was right, the doctor asked for her hand. Their mother, knowing her children were having a forbidden affair, accepted the doctor's offer as the doctor promised to provide good money and a good life. Even though he and his sister were very much in love, they knew it was time to end their relationship. She married the doctor and he married their neighbour's daughter. She moved to California for a new beginning and he moved to Virginia to open his own house building business.
For five years, they hadn't talked... because they knew if they saw each other, they wouldn't be able to keep their hands off each other.
One day in 1921, he got a letter from his brother-in-law. The doctor wanted to build a house - a castle for his queen. As soon as he received the letter, he travelled all the way to California. When he saw his sister again, he knew he still loved her although she had changed and her attitude had become just like their mother's. She was angry. She didn't get the satisfying life she wanted. She wanted to be with him.
This was the biggest project he had worked on. The house took almost a year to complete. The longer the project lasted, the longer he would stay with his sister. This was not a project for the doctor to show his love to his wife. This was a project for the architect to show his love to his sister. He even modeled the Tiffany glass fixtures after the colour of her eyes.
Sadly, that didn't last forever. When the house was almost completed, it seemed like it had come alive. The house was like his child with his sister. He heard voices telling him to stay, to be with his sister forever, in the house. He knew he was going insane because of his love of his sister. He knew he had to go. Eventually, he had to return to Virginia and came home to his wife and their two children.
Two years later one day, the architect's office doorbell rang. It was his sister. She had a miscarriage with her third child and she had separated with her husband. He took her in and offered hot beverage. It really was a small one-man office, no secretary and contracted workers were working on the field. The pair hit it off right away. They undress each other with familiar touch. No hesitation, they did it on the table. They longed for this moment for too long. They were doing what they had fantasized for the last seven, or maybe ten years. They didn't need approval. It was nothing wrong, it's just love.
At night, he brought her home. He did not tell the truth to his wife and his wife did not suspect anything as she was her husband's sister. She would not even imagine what had happened between the two and how excited those two were in the office earlier that day.
She stayed in his house for the next three days. She went to work with him and they had sex many more times in the office, sometimes on the table, sometimes against the bookshelf, sometimes on the chair, and sometimes even on the floor. It was like the world was dead to them and they were the only human on this planet. However, good moments never lasted.
The doctor had come to Virginia to reclaim his wife's heart. She agreed to leave, as she told her brother that she had gotten what she needed. It did not make sense to the man until nine months later when he received a letter from his sister.
She had given birth to a seemingly healthy baby boy. He knew the baby was his, but he couldn't say a thing to his wife or his brother-in-law. Was he just a sperm donor to his sister? Or did he still mean anything to her? He couldn't ask for the answer. He went back to his boring, empty-hearted life.
1926, he was informed about the bad news of his sister's tragedy. He became the owner of the house. Now, he wanted more answers. He went back to California with his wife. While his wife was taking care of their two children in the hotel, he went to the house. The carpet was cleaned, but the blood stains were still visible on the wall paper. He used his hand to trace the edge of sister's blood stain. It hurt to know his beloved killed herself at that very same spot. He walked around the house to look for his sister's traces and he was led into the basement by invisible force.
In there, he saw unhygienic abortion equipments. He saw bottles of "experiments". He saw his sister crying and he knew it was an illusion. Then he saw the doctor's master work - zombie child. The baby was his child. What could have caused this monstrosity? Was it because of his incestuous relationship with sister? Was it god's punishment for the doctor taking so many children's lives? He remembered their mother used to say her sister's womb was cursed. It's in their blood.
He blamed himself. If he had run away with his sister before she married the doctor, if he had not built this house, if he had stayed in the house when the house was first built, if he had asked his sister to stay when she visited or if he had said a word when his son was born, this would never had happened.
The house whispered to him. Darkness has conquered his soul. He walked back to the same spot his sister killed herself, grabbed a gun and shot his head.
Three hours later, his wife found his body. He was watching her from the side. She looked so sad. He felt sorry for leaving her. He had never really loved her. She later sold the house at a price way below market value and moved back to Virginia.
From that day onward, he swore to become the guardian angel of his sister's spirit. He covered his face as he did not want his sister to know he took his own life too. And he stayed to learn every secret and every spirits inside the house. He was the father of the house. it was his destiny.
He had a name. It was Tatum, and this was his house.
= The End =
If you like it, please review and let me know you exist.
Sorry if you are against an incestuous relationship... Initially, I planned to write him as her third cousin, but being siblings, that would make their relationship more of a taboo. (I am a sadly twisted RHPS Riff/Mag shipper.)
The Wisdom Man was a minor character in my Moira/Kat (original character) story – World To Come. Check it out if you are interested.
