Hamilton, Ontario July, 1977
Willis Black took the top half of the stairway two at a time and jumped from the fourth step down from the landing. He could hear his mother's voice from the basement and she did not sound quite human. She sounded like his cousin George had when he inhaled from a helium balloon , but louder and fighting mad. He heard her angrily squeak his sister's full name, which alarmed but did not suprise him. If his mother had suddenly turned into a murderous munchkin while doing the laundry, Quinna was surely behind it.
Willis Black was nine years old, sandy-haired, tall, spindly and the top of his class in math and science. His sister was four, red headed and a witch. Willis didn't just THINK Quinna was a witch. He had irrefutable scientific evidence. (It wasn't peer-reviewed, but only because he hadn't published.) She had begun levitating her teddy in the general direction of his head when she was 5 months old. It had taken several days before his mother had witnessed it herself and anyone believed Willis's "stories."
He and his Dad had kept a journal from that point on of any unexplained phenomena that happened around her with until the next Christmas, when his grandfather Black suddenly jumped up at the dinner table and cried out "it's happened. It's really happening. Oh I just knew one of you was magic. I thought maybe Willis, but he could just be abnormally bright. No way to be sure, no way to be sure," he muttered, wringing his dinner napkin, "still so young. But you ARE, Quinna! You are a witch! " Quinna Eleanor Black, eight months old and the accused sorceress of the hour, stopped levitating her grandfather's peas, smiled and drooled a large quantitiy of mashed potatoes down her Santa onesie. Aunt Eleanor turned to her husband Bernard (who was rumoured to have been a Psychology major) and anxiously suggested her father had had too much eggnog for a man his age. "Oh, yes, maybe. How old is he again?" Willis's mother jumped at the possibility of changing the subject and pretended to guess he was only 74. Multiple people weighed in on this new, more conventional conversation topic and thankfully went back to ignoring all the children, including Quinna. Willis KNEW his grandfather was actually 81, but being abnormally bright for his age, kept his mouth shut until after dessert was cleared away.
Later that evening, Willis cornererd Grandfather Black by the back stairway and what Dad called the real Quinvestigation began. Magic or rather GFB's lack of it was apparently the Black family secret. Grandfather said all families have secrets. When his family, who were British, all magical, and proud of it, realized he was not, he was quietly disowned. He said he was lucky to have been born into the "good" branch of the Black family, given an untraceable trust fund and sent away to boarding school. He'd had no further contact from any of his relatives except very rare letters from even more rare family members who would admit he existed. When anyone asked about his background, he claimed have been orphaned at the age of eight.
After the Christmas holidays, Willis decided to continue studying his sister's abilities on his own. His Dad had lost interest when he discovered the semi-logical explanation that magic was real, it ran in families, an he didn't have any. Willis didn't have any either, but it still fascinated him.
As he got closer to the basement door, he slowed in his approach. He could clearly hear Quinna giggling, so Mama couldn't be murdering her.
