STATS
Name: Gus Kowalski Gender/pronouns: He/Him Age: 38 Species: Necromancer Occupation: Novelist Faceclaim: John Krasinski
HISTORY: (trigger: death mentions)
Gus Kowalski did not remember meeting Siobhan, nor did he remember creating herâif one were to believe she were merely an imaginary friend conjured up by a lonely child. But he did remember telling his mother about her. Perched on a kitchen chair in the large seaside inn in which he was raised, he spoke eagerly about this new companion, feet dangling so that he could kick his sneakers into the leg of the table. âShove-on,â he chirped happily. He made a pushing motion with his hands. âHer name is Shove-on.â And to the boy, then only five-years-old, the matter truly was that simple.
Still, in that moment, lines flickered across his motherâs brow, perhaps concern, or worry, and clicking her tongue, she hurriedly shifted the subject elsewhere, to his still unclean bedroom, to the windows still open upstairs, and to the thunderstorm brewing outside.Â
The tourist town in which Gus was born was known for its stately Victorian homesâand to that end, the ghosts that dwelled within them. The bed and breakfast his parents owned was a large blue house with white shutters and exactly one overactive little boy running up and down the carpeted staircase.Â
It welcomed guests year round, primarily during the summer months but also during Christmas, and it was known for its hearty, home-cooked food, its antique furnishings, and the specter of young Siobhan Buchanan, who had been walking its halls since she fell down the staircase and lost her life a century ago. Mr. and Mrs. Kowalski had tried, apparently in vain, to keep those old stories from their adoptive son, taken gratefully into their family following their own unsuccessful attempts to conceive.Â
And Gus led a doting, if uneventful childhoodâapart from the infrequent Siobhan story. But spinning spooky tales was easy in the groaning old house he called home. Shadows played strangely down the corridors, and the walls met the ceilings at odd, irregular angles. It made the boy feel incredibly small, like it might swallow him up, and perhaps he did need some sort of playmate, imagined or otherwise, to keep him company in those halls.Â
But Siobhan was not imagined; she did walk that rambling old inn. And in the young Gus, she had found an ear into which she could whisper and, for the first time in an eternity, be heard.Â
At that time, Gus himself knew nothing of his birth, having been placed into foster care at only a few months old. And while he liked to imagine otherwise, he truly had been unwanted, marked by one vocal witchâs premonition of a âdeep darknessâ surrounding him. And so, the baby was left to be consumed by human bureaucracy. And with no coven, no community in which to hone his abilities, perhaps the hope was that his true nature would simply not manifest, hampered by his own lack of belief in or knowledge of it.
In many ways, then, the young necromancer did lead a relatively average life. As he grew older, he paid the voices less mind, his thoughts becoming more concerned with high school baseball or finding a part-time job. Siobhan would appear less frequently, becoming little more than a vague memory, a whisper in the dead of night.Â
Upon finishing his education, Gus took a year off to help at the bed & breakfast when his fatherâs health turned. He checked in guests, repaired leaky toilets, handed out towels, and before long, one year became two, and then three, and then four.Â
At twenty-five, he started a long term romance with a young woman with whom he had gone to grade school, and at twenty-eight, they got into a bitter relationship-ending argument that left Gus trudging home alone in the rain. That night would forever alter the trajectory of the young manâs life.Â
From the street, he saw a familiar, flickering form in an upper-story window. And emotions already racing from the fight, Gus, all at once, felt his mind open, electrified by the swirling energy within him. Siobhan spoke again that stormy evening, loudly, clearly, leaning over him in the dark. He sat hunched over his computer, illuminated only by the glow of the monitor and the occasional flash of lightning outside.
Some months later, Gus Kowalski finished the novel that would catapult him to literary notoriety. But it was not his story; it had been fed to him, word for word, line by line, by the long dead woman who had wanted him to tell it. It was the story of Siobhan Buchanen, spoken finally in its entirety, complete enough to allow her to rest. And when she had finally spoken it, the spirit fell silent.
But the book was not complete, Gus thought. The spirit fell silent, either unable or unwilling to reveal to him that actual, final moment, the last breath. And Gus would not know that moment until he breathed his own.
The completed bookâs publication came somewhat accidentally, passed from a friend to a friend of a friend who worked in publishing. And from there, the manâs future was sealed.Â
Today, Gus writes large, ghastly novels, violent, page-turning things people buy at supermarkets. He travels often, staying in haunted places and towns, where, in interviews he says he finds his greatest inspirations. He tells the stories exactly as he is told to tell them.
Of course, names are changed, places, things added and subtracted. But each and every Gus Kowalski novel starts with the same prologue, an admission that he did not write it, that it belongs to the protagonist detailed within, and that the ending, and only the ending has been made up. He has never been told one.
And although he still knows very little about his species, research has at least given him the word for it: necromancy. He remains torn about how deeply he ought to dive into it, and a strange, lurking fear in his chest tells him he can do more with the powerful magic still lying dormant within him.Â
PERSONALITY:
+ Human, pragmatic, humble, obliging
- Gruff, cynical, bitter, guilty
Gus is played by Ted. Â