#5 – Matilda Madison

Matilda is the youngest child and only daughter of Gustav and Susanna Wever.  Her father is one of the richest men in Victorian Chicago (it’s 1898).  Although he is fanatically devoted to his wife and loves her above even his massive wealth, he is ashamed of Matilda and wants to be with her as little as possible.  The only reason he let Susanna keep Matilda instead of anonymously abandoning her to an orphanage is because Susanna would never forgive him and threatened to kill herself if he tried to do it. Why would he be so cruel?  Because he’s a bigoted jerk who cares about appearances more than (almost) anything else.

Matilda is an albino.  With white hair, white skin, red eyes and all the trademarks of albinism including ocular diseases and sensitive skin, she often wears specially made “sun-spectacles”, wide brimmed hats, shawls and a parasol to protect her from the harmful rays of the sun.

To Gustav (and many others) she is a freak of nature.  He allows Susanna to keep her, but insists they relocate to a mansion he builds them far away from the city.  He tells everyone that his daughter died in childbirth and swears the rest to secrecy. Matilda is raised separated from everyone else, schooled by private tutors and never expected to do anything other than take care of her parents – mostly mother – when they get older.  She has two brothers – the oldest follows his father’s example and ignores her, but her other brother loves her dearly and tries to make her feel like more than a pariah.

She is extremely clever, however, with a genius IQ.  Matilda considers herself blessed and not cursed, because she looks like a freak she can easily tell friends from foes by how they react to her appearance.  She adores Sherlock Holmes novels and other mysteries and dreams of becoming a detective herself.  She solves her first mystery – involving a ghost, a secret treasure, and a long forgotten graveyard near their house – when she was 12.  It opened her eyes to the reality of the world around her – that in an age of reason and industry there is magic everywhere, real magic.  As she grows older she discovers that her dreams of being a private detective can come true if she accepts and abnormal clientele – magic folk.  Once she assists a lost were kitten finding her way home (and then getting embroiled in a family battle over the theft and inheritance rights of a powerful heirloom), magic folk have come to her to help her solve mysteries they know the Normies (normal people) can’t handle.

She tends to work at night, slipping out of the house when most of the others are asleep, and sleep during the day – given her sensitivity to sunlight that schedule usually works best.  Her older brother is suspicious of her night rambles and follows her one night, discovering the other world for himself and after that he becomes a mixture of a Watson-like sidekick and a bodyguard.

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