#Except Father Josiah he deserved exactly what he got

[the-cosmos-withinus]

Shadow Puppets AU - Wittebros + Evelyn Lore Dump 

tw: Sexual assault

Disclaimer from myself and Bragi

-While the story went that Caleb and Philip arrived in Gravesfield alone as orphaned brothers, the truth was actually even more horrible. Philip is not Caleb’s brother, and is actually is nephew through a teenage sister, the product of a rape and since she could not name the father the baby was condemned as a son of the Devil -Caleb and his sister managed to escape their hometown with a small group undesirables and traveled together for a couple of years with Caleb becoming Philip’s primary caregiver when his mother wanted nothing to do with the child and eventually abandoned them all together. -This is a truth that Caleb took to his grave, Philip never learned of this while he was alive and only kind of learned about this upon his return to Gravesfield and encountered a certain member of the community that claimed to be a descendant of this long lost sister- Philip refuses to believe it. In fact by the time of his death, Caleb himself had actually forgotten they weren’t really brothers. -Philip was six when they arrived in Gravesfield, Caleb was twelve. They had nothing and were taken in by the town Preacher, Father Josiah and allowed to live in the church and attend the Sunday school where they were taught to read and write. -As much as a blessing as this at first seemed, Father Josiah was secretly molesting Philip behind closed doors. Caleb found out, but Josiah had also found out about Caleb’s sister and threatened to expose them to keep Caleb quiet while telling Philip “The Lord has big plans for you” to control him. -This situation did not change until Philip met Astrophel at eight years old and he was able to manifest long enough to attack Josiah to protect Philip. Amidst the accusations that Philip had summoned a demon and the debate that he was protected by an Angel, other children came forward to admit that Josiah had been assaulting them as well, leading the town to suspect Josiah of being corrupted by a Demon himself and burned at the stake. -While not entirely evident in the early part of his life, Philip is an autistic savant with a talent for engineering, and struggles to socially connect with anyone outside of his brother and his mysterious friend Astrophel. He was a hard worker though, and when he finished his chores he would help Caleb with his so they had more time to play. -Caleb also knows about Astrophel. They didn’t know that people could only see the Collector if they touched the disk until they tested it with Caleb. He wasn’t as certain as Philip that Astrophel was an Angel, but he was just glad his brother had a friend. -The brothers began dabbling in Witch Hunting after the death of Father Josiah, and Caleb first met Evelyn as she was using her powers as a real witch to save accused human witches from being hung. Caleb at first lied to her about not being a witch hunter and they became friends. -Evelyn had several vials of Titan’s blood at her disposal which she used to create portals to Gravesfield, but rarely met Caleb in person after their initial meeting and mostly used her Palismen, Flapjack to send letters between them. -She had only met Philip a handful of times and never actually saw his face because Philip always had his mask on around her, which she admitted to Caleb, creeped her out a lot. -Philip never suspected that she was a real witch until he saw her taking Caleb to the Demon Realm, he just didn’t like her because she...lightly bullied him, I guess is the best way to put it? Like, she didn’t intend to be mean, she was trying to be affectionate, giving him the nickname ‘Philly’ which he hated, ruffling his hair and breaching all sorts of personal boundaries that he didn’t like, but she really was just trying to bond with him. -Also during one of their in person visits, Evelyn suggested Caleb run away from Gravesfield with her, which Caleb refused to do because he couldn’t leave his brother behind, and Evelyn said something along the lines of ‘C’mon, you gave up your childhood to raise your brother, its time to do something for yourself for a change.” Philip heard her say this. Thankfully he also heard Caleb get mad at her for suggesting that taking care of his brother was a burden. -Caleb and Evelyn had a couple of personal conflicts throughout their friendship, actually, including Evelyn finding out that Caleb was a witch-hunter in training and saying their friendship was over  -Eveyln had heard about Astrophel from Caleb and recognized the disk from ancient scrolls and returned to the Demon Realm to refresh her memory on what it was. After their fight about the Witch-Hunter reveal, she returned with a warning that the Collector is a dangerous being that was responsible for wiping out the Titans of her homeworld and convinced Caleb to take the disk into the Demon Realm with her for his brother’s sake. -Knowing that Philip would never believe that Astrophel was dangerous, they stole the disk in the middle of the night. Evelyn only had two vials of Titan’s blood left and they had to make a choice between taking Caleb with her and bringing him back or leaving a vial for Philip to find and meet them in the Demon Realm later. -Caleb left a letter explaining the situation to Philip, including instructions to find a map that they had hidden in ‘the secret place’ (under the floorboards) which would lead him to the vial of Titan’s Blood to follow them. -Things would have gone down much differently if Philip had ever gotten this letter. Unfortunately, he woke up when Caleb was leaving to meet Evelyn and saw them go through the portal with no context. He immediately went to get the Witch Hunter General and a few other Hunters to go on a rescue mission.  -The letter was recovered from the abandoned Wittebane home after their disappearance which is how the story of the Wittebanes got passed down through Gravesfield, but the map was never found. -Philip was twelve at the time of his brother’s disappearance, Caleb was eighteen. The Witch Hunters all slowly died during the rescue mission leaving Philip on his own by the time he was fifteen after which the worst possible thing that could happen to him happened and he still didn’t find his brother until he was in his early twenties and then it got worse. -After Caleb’s death, Philip began searching for Astrophel with Evelyn creating false disks to throw him off and hot on his trail trying to kill the monster he’s become for many years.