Coraline 2: Return to the Other World
Summary: Life can't get any worse for Alli Woods when she has to move from sunny California to rainy Oregon. But when the Beldam lures her into discovering the Other World, she's completely happy – until she discovers it's a trap. Can Coraline and Wybie save her before it's too late? Sequel to the movie.
A/N: Yes, I know. EVERYONE is doing a Coraline sequel. But, from all the ones that I've read, this one is going to be different. Much different. I've had this idea in my head for longer than a year, and I've been writing this story for just as long, and finally I'm publishing it. (:
Disclaimer: Coraline belongs to Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick, not me, sadly. But Alli, Max, Olivia Woods, Lucy Barfield, and Coraline, Wybie, and Lucy's friends from school, however, DO belong to me. (:
PROLOGUE
Coraline lay on her bed, humming softly and flipping the pages of a magazine that had just arrived in the mail yesterday. She was reading about some Asian women who dyed their scarves over and over again and burned them. It seemed extremely pointless to Coraline, but there was nothing else to read.
"Coraline? Come down here!" Mrs. Jones's voice came from downstairs. Coraline sighed and closed her magazine, walking down the steps. She hesitated in front of the drawing room, glancing at the little door in the corner. It was completely shut, same as always.
Almost everyday, Coraline checked the door (from a distance) – just to be sure it was locked, and every day, it was. It had been eighteen months – one and a half years – since she'd moved from Michigan to Ashland and discovered the little door in the corner of the drawing room, which wasn't so little at all. Behind it was another world, called the Other World, where she had an Other Mother, Other Father, Other Neighbors, everything. The Others were much better versions than their real selves – her Other Mother actually cared about her, her Other Father was funny, and not in the embarrassing way, and her Other Neighbors were a lot less weird, and more fun. The Other World was great – except for one little problem. To stay there, she'd have to have buttons sewn into her eyes, like everyone else there.
Coraline had refused, and her Other Mother had gotten angry, and transformed into a spider-witch thing, and taken her real parents, which Coraline had to go back and save, and also find the three children's ghost eyes.
Anyway, it was a long story – a story that was over and done with. Her parents were back, and the Other Mother was gone. She was free from her. Even the nightmares had stopped – she hadn't had one in about a month.
Coraline suddenly realized she was still standing in the doorway of the drawing room, so she turned and headed into the kitchen, where she found her mother, Mel Jones, sitting and reading a magazine. "I got a call from Wybie's grandmother today." Mrs. Jones declared, flinching slightly when she said the name of Coraline's friend and Coraline hid a smirk. Just the other day, Wybie had knocked into the cabinet and had broken three plates. Of course he had offered to pay for it, but Coraline still knew her mother was at cautious terms with him.
"And?" Coraline asked. Wybie's grandmother was one of the only people she had told about the Other World, and was the only person that had believed her right off the bat. She'd also told Wybie and her parents, but Wybie took a while to believe her, and her parents still thought she had just been dreaming.
"You know how she owns the Pink Palace Apartments, right? Well, some new people are moving in."
"Really? Where?" She asked, excited.
Mrs. Jones nodded. "To the empty flat across from us where the 'Jones imposters' live," she joked. The little door in the drawing room had originally lead to the empty flat behind Coraline's, until it had been bricked up when the house had been divided into flats. When Coraline told her parents about her dreams about the door (which had turned out to be reality), Mrs. Jones had called the Other Family "Jones' imposters."
Coraline laughed nervously, and then quickly changed the subject. "How many are moving in?"
"Three. It's a family, I think," Mrs. Jones replied.
"A family?" Coraline cried, excited.
Mel smiled. She was doing that more often nowadays. "I knew you would be excited. I'm pretty sure there's a mother, a boy around seven, a girl just around your age."
"Yes!" Coraline shrieked with excitement, bouncing up and down, her blue hair bouncing along with her. "This is great!" Coraline was in need of a girl neighbor-friend. She had a bunch of girl-friends at school, and she loved Wybie and Cat, but still.
"I think her name starts with a K…or maybe an L…" Coraline rolled her eyes. "What? I'm not good with names. Ask Wybie in the morning, he might know."
"Can't I ask him now?" asked Coraline, frowning.
"Ask who what now?" Charlie Jones, Coraline's dad, entered the room, with a cup of milk in his hand. Coraline rolled her eyes. Her dad could be so nosy sometimes.
"I want to ask Wybie what the new girl's name is," Coraline replied, and turned back to her mom, waiting for her answer.
"It's, like, nine o' clock, Coraline," Mel said. "It's too late to go bother them. Just wait like a normal person and ask him in the morning."
Coraline groaned – one of her many flaws was her impatient ness. "Fine."
"What new girl?" Charlie asked, sitting at the kitchen table and sipping from his glass of milk.
"There's a family moving into the empty flat across from us," Coraline told her father, unable to hide her smile. "And they've got a girl about my age."
"I think," Mel butted in. "Don't get your hopes up. I don't know for sure."
"Yeah, yeah," Coraline rolled her eyes. "I'm going to bed, okay?"
"Okay. Good night," Mel called as Coraline climbed up the steps. She entered her room and flopped onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Coraline liked to do this – just stare at the ceiling and think.
"Meow," Coraline jumped and glanced up. Cat stood behind the window, patting the windowpane with his paw. Coraline immediately unlatched the window and Cat sprang in, landing daintily on the bed. He curled into a small ball and looked up at her with his huge blue eyes.
Coraline grinned and moved the magazine away from the bed, sitting down and scratching behind his ears. "There's a new family moving in!" Coraline whispered to Cat, grinning. She sighed happily and didn't even notice the Cat's worried look.
Coraline slid into bed and fell asleep, Cat in her arms, and was immediately sucked into her dreams.
She stood in front of the Pink Palace Apartments, and it was dead night. But somehow she knew this wasn't her Pink Palace. This was the Other Pink Palace.
Coraline shivered in the wind and approached the steps. On the balcony on the upper flat stood Mr. Bobinsky and his mice circus, their button eyes glinting, smiling eerily. At the top of the stairs down to the bottom flat stood the younger Misses Spink and Forcible, Miss Spink standing on Miss Forcible's shoulders, their expressions the same as Mr. Bobinsky's. But Coraline walked past them and into the house and as she stood in the doorway, she heard the haunting voice she hoped she'd never hear again.
"Coraline…Coraline…Coraline…" Coraline followed the voice and stood in the drawing room to face the Other Mother, her needle hands tapping on the table, a grim look upon her face.
"No!" Coraline shrieked as the Other Mother leaned forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. Suddenly the scene changed. She was in the garden, and then she was in the Other Misses Spink and Forcible's flat, and then she was in Wybie's house, and then she was in front of the well, and finally she was in the room behind the mirror.
And suddenly the Beldam began to change. She changed to her mother, then her father, then Cat, then Miss Spink, then Miss Forcible, then Mr. Bobinsky, then Wybie, then the Other Wybie, then the three ghosts, then Lucy and her other friends from school, then finally a girl with short dark brown hair.
But they all had button eyes.
It takes a long time to write, but it was happening so fast that Coraline could hardly make it out. And she kept on repeating, over and over, "I will get you Coraline! You have not seen the last of me!"
Coraline screamed and bolted upright, startling Cat. And suddenly, she was back in her room at her real home in the real world. She sighed with relief and held the cat closer. He purred angrily and she loosened her grip slightly. "Sorry," she whispered. Tears were in her eyes and she was drenched with cold sweat. She sat the cat in front of her. He licked his paw.
Coraline frowned. She hadn't had one of the dreams in at least a month…why was she having another one?
"It was just a dream," she said aloud. "It was just a dream. Right?" She looked at Cat. He just blinked and set his paw down. Coraline frowned. "Well you're no help." But she invited him back into her arms and she settled down for sleep.
X.x.X
"Everything's complete."
The Bedlam leaned against the kitchen counter, her mouth in a smug line. Her long, black fingernails tapped against her arm, making a horrible hollow sound, but it didn't seem to bother her. She looked around the room she was standing in – a replica of the kitchen in the empty flat of Coraline's apartment.
She had seen what was coming far before it had happened. As soon as Coraline had left and taken her power away, she lay in waiting, crumpled in a heap on the floor. She lay like that until finally she gained enough power to stand up. In our time it would be about two or three months – but in hers who knew how long? As soon as she stood up she began getting back to work. The house needed fixing up, seeing as the wallpaper was peeling off of the walls, and of course the grounds had all disappeared. And of course she needed to make more "Others." It all took a while – but finally, everything was complete – she had even made the little spy doll! And not too soon, either – for the new girl was planning to move in two weeks. But, yes – everything was complete, and the Bedlam was sure that everything would fall into place.
If it wasn't for that ugly vermin!
She knew that he watched her as she worked, but she did nothing about it – after all, the cat couldn't talk or warn anyone in the real world – at least, not verbally. But what if he warned the girl here? What would she do then?
The Bedlam's forehead creased but she took a deep breath and calmed down. If he did, who cared? She'd just have to be better than him. And she could do that. Of course she could. She already was.
And the Bedlam began to laugh. Nothing could stop her now. Nothing.
X.x.X
A/N: Just in case you're a little confused – the Bedlam gained power a few months after Coraline left the Other World, because she's a witch and witches gain power faster than we do. Then she began fixing up the house and the grounds for the new girl, and when Mel tells Coraline that a girl's moving in its two weeks advance to when the new girl actually does move in.
Also – if you've only seen the movie Coraline but haven't read the book then you may be thinking, "What? There are only three flats in the Pink Palace!" But if you've read the book, on page nine, it says: "When this place was just one house," said Coraline's mother, "that door went somewhere. When they turned the house into flats, they simply bricked it up. The other side is the empty flat on the other side of the house, the one that's still for sale."
And in the movie there has to be something behind the bricked up door (besides the Other World, I mean).
Review, please! (: