While the letter Jon had received was surprisingly truthful when it told him that the innocuous looking rock was in fact a powerful magical artifact, there were in fact a few fibs in it. The biggest of which was that Jon's grandfather was dead, as the only thing he was passing on was the stone itself, to Jon of course. Hiram Madison was in fact alive and well, though perhaps not very recognizable. That came with faking your death and wishing a random bug to turn into a perfect facsimile of your own dead body before leaving town.
It might seem a strange thing to do, but Hiram was bored. He'd had the stone for awhile, and gone around a time or two with its magic. He'd been a woman, a child, a speck of dust, a dog, a cat, a god and a king throughout his ownership of the rock. (If one was clever with how they worded there wishes, it was easy to get around the irreversability, and one of the first things Hiram had wished up was essentially a reset button that would send him back in time to just before he'd made a wish he wanted to undo.) However in all that time, and despite his myriad forms, there was one thing he'd always been, in control. With the Stone, Hiram had the ultimate trump card in every situation, and he'd felt the stakes for his adventures slipping away on him. What he wanted was to be surprised, to have to roll with the punches again.
Which was led him to his scheme; He'd sent the rock to Jon, someone he knew wouldn't abuse the stone, and hoped would be interesting with it, but not before setting a few things up. After faking his death, he'd taken on a new identity, someone close to Jon in Lakeview so he could observe what his grandson did with the stone, and maybe join in on the shenanigans, just not in the drivers seat this time. Jon wouldn't know it, but Hiram would be by his side, just under another face.
The only question was, who was Hiram now?
