Out with a bang

Disclaimer: Only a few of characters are mine. Coraline and her friends and neighbours belong to Neil Gaiman and LAIKA studios.

...The metallic hand fell down into the watery depths of the well with a plop! Immediately, a pair of bulging, inhuman eyes, set in a noseless face, swivelled in the direction of the sound, and things would have gone much different and probably much worse for the Beldam and for Coraline, and for a number of other people, but at that moment there was another plop!.. and the black key, whose handle still resembled a button, hit the noseless face right in the noggin.

Immediately, a sexdactylous hand lunged up and seized the key, bringing down, down to the level of the bulging, inhuman eyes, set in a face that had no nose. "Ah!" spoke the mouth below the eyes. "The changeling's power is gone! Now I hold it! – but I must act fast, before the rest of the hags will begin to seek it! Yes – I shall act fast and my position in the Unseelie court will be assured!"

The bulging eyes swung round, along with the rest of the noseless face, seeking out anything else that had – or could have – fallen into the well alongside the black key, but the hand, which was actually much more smarter than its ordinary human counterpart, to put it lightly, was already climbing and scurrying out of the reach even of that inhuman, luminous gaze back to the rest of it.

To the rest of the Beldam, who was going to have plenty of problems of her own...

[Break]

Amazingly and possibly a bit hubrisly, Coraline Jones was bored.

Outside it was another rainy day, when the sky seemed to seek a recreation of the biblical flood and sought to wash away everything off the face of the earth. Consequently, everyone who had a home, thought that it would be prudent to stay in it, with a cup of hot tea or another appropriate liquid, and spend time with the family and friends.

Except for Coraline's folks. Somehow, undoubtedly due to his amazing computer skills, Mr. Jones managed to write a dissertation of some sort or other, and had been asked to go to Portland to defend it. Mrs. Jones, whose professional nose smelled blood in the water, and whose wifely loyalty demanded to ensure that it wouldn't be her husband's, decided to go along with her man and assist him – both in moral and organizational sense.

Unfortunately, Coraline was the odd Jones out. Clearly, her father's dissertation was a serious matter; so serious, that Coraline's exploratory nature would be completely counterproductive to successful execution of his report, so Coraline was left to guard the flat, with her friend Wybie for company.

Enter the rain, as mentioned above, as the rambunctious elements simply cut-off the lively girl from the rest of the world and her friends, human or otherwise, for not even as extreme an explorer as her would risk going outside, when sky and earth seemed to have bonded into one single and solid block of grey murkiness, and when exploration could easily lead to trip to the hospital or worse.

Therefore, Coraline was reduced to bare boredom, made worse by the fact that even her feline friend was absent, apparently either preferring Wybie's company to hers, or holed-up somewhere else, possibly in company of other cats or Cats, as the case may be.

Finally, there was the Beldam, who was most definitely not Coraline's friend at all. Rather, the strange creature was the closest thing that the young girl had for an enemy, or even an archenemy. But yet, the Beldam's obvious silence since her inglorious defeat at Coraline's hands (and Cat's paws) did appear rather ominous and Coraline was getting genuinely worried that the strange being from the Other World was up to something really no good, and that she, Coraline, was directly in the way of-

"No, that is ridiculous!" Coraline spoke fervently, as she spun on a chair (she bet herself a dollar that she would be able to do 25 spins without getting dizzy – so far, she was losing to herself for a twentieth time), "the key is gone, the door is locked! There is no way that the Beldam will be able to get here-"

There was a movement in the kitchen mirror – and it was not reflection of Coraline who was still spinning around on a chair. It was a reflection of the Jones' family kitchen, but rather it was the other family kitchen...

It was at this unfortunate moment, as Coraline was struck with comprehension, something else struck her – gravity, or a loss of balance, as Coraline fell off her chair due to dizziness for the twenty-first time and dropped to the floor, as helpless as a bug stuck in jam. However, by a stroke of luck, she fell with her head twisted towards the kitchen mirror, and so, as she lay on the floor, unable to get herself up in fear of vomiting, the mirror partially remained in field of view, and therefore Coraline, as she lay perfectly still, was still to see what was going on in there, and moreover – to hear...

[Break]

The other kitchen had clearly seen better days, and these days were probably around the time when Coraline looked the door and threw away the key. It was completely, stark empty of everything, except for some basic furniture... and the Beldam, who was sitting in a position similar to Coraline's, her head half-turned away from the girl's view, her poise hunched and tensed.

"Has she been watching me?" Coraline wondered, but then realized that she was not: the Beldam's poise was wrong, the creature had been looking in the direction of the kitchen corridor, not at her, and right now, someone – or even several people – was exiting from that corridor into the kitchen.

Immediately, the Beldam's poise changed from hunched and tensed to ramrod-straight...and still tensed. "Why," the monstrous woman said purringly (and Coraline was much mystified about how was she able to hear her through the mirror), "if it isn't my other aunts! To what do I have the honour of your collective visit?"

Coraline stared. The Beldam had been quite inhuman and scary, but, with her button eyes put aside, she could have passed for a human, if seen from the back. However, her visitors – they were something else. However, they did have human shapes – a head and a body, two arms and two legs – that was the limit of their similarities to ordinary people.

The one on the left had skin of putrid yellow colour with hair the colour of dead seaweed, from which water continuously dropped. Her clothing seemed to be rotting from mildew, and she had no shoes, demonstrating two pairs of completely webbed toes. Her eyes appeared to be a pair of ice-pieces – rotting, black ice-pieces - and the smile that she bore on her face was just as cold, although there was not anything rotting in it: instead, the teeth resembled shiny, bony harpoons.

The one of the right had skin of a rotting green colour with hair the colour of fallen leaves, when they begin to rot. Her clothing was threadbare, albeit not rotten, and her toes and fingers seemed not webbed, but rather heavily clawed, resembling limbs of a bear rather than a human. Her eyes resembled a pair of embers with flames still lurking within – deep, deep within. Unlike her counterpart on the left, she was not smiling.

In addition, neither was the veritable giantess between the yellow- and the green-skinned humanoids. Rather, she was the colour of darkness, of darkness that never saw any light, and in place of eyes, she had two holes of even deeper darkness. There was nothing wrong with her teeth, though, as they glinted in a wicked green colour, and her claws, though relatively shorter than the claws of the green-skinned creature on her right, seemed to be hard and sharp enough to slice through steel.

In short, compared to the newcomers, the original Beldam seemed to be humane and feeble, and put in contrast against the giantess, actually vulnerable and small. Still, there was no evident fear in her gaze, and her voice, once she spoke to her visitors, seemed to be level and sarcastically cheerful.

"My aunties!" the Beldam was continuing to speak, gesticulating with her left hand and keeping her right out of Coraline's point of view. "What can I offer all of you for repast?"

"You have a glib tongue, Christabell, as it befits someone of your station, but this time it will help you not," the yellow-skin spoke in a voice that reminded Coraline of bubbles breaking from the surface of a still pond – of a very deep, deadly cold, still pond. "You have failed! Your other daughter had turned against you!"

"Nonsense!" the Beldam seemed to have actually smiled. "This is just a family misunderstanding – typical of this branch of family. Don't forget what I did to my other mother, yes? Compared to this, you're dealing with some teenage tantrums, nothing more!"

"Perhaps so, but where is the little darling?" the giantess spoke-up. Her voice was heavy and gravelly, the sound of an avalanche, falling deep within a mountain range. "Why wouldn't she greet us? After all, wouldn't it be proper?"

"I wouldn't know that myself," the Beldam shrugged. "My other mother was never too big on protocols herself, you know?"

"Lies!" the giantess rumbled, as she effortlessly threw away the kitchen table between the Beldam and the newcomers. "You have failed, Christabell, and for that you must be chastised!"

The Beldam did not say anything, but somehow her silence held the notes of the same perky defiance that her previous replies had, and her stance remained tall and proud.

"Trillobia, Vyrdahlia, let's begin!" the giantess rumbled, as she and her companions formed a semi-circle around the Beldam and began to chant something in a language that Coraline was certain had nothing to do with English, French, Spanish or any other language spoken in this world.

As they spoke the picture in the mirror slowly got saturated by the blinding white light and Coraline felt some sort of a primal fear rising her chest – this was something new, this was magic, and she was quite sure that that wasn't the kind of magic that she would want to get caught in. Consequently, she was no longer as attentive to the finer details, and so she didn't hear the Beldam chanting something quietly as well, nor did she see – moments before the mirror explode with light – how the Beldam's right arm, complete with a hand (albeit sown on with some rough stitches) – reach out and grab the yellow-skinned hag!

However, all of this has gone right over Coraline's head: the girl fainted.

[Break]

Wybie Lowat was bored stiff. The damn rain was coming down like there was no tomorrow, effectively cutting him off from the rest of the world and his friends, leaving him on his own with his grandma. What joy. Who was currently asleep, as she tended to do during bad weather. Double joy. In addition, Wybie himself just could not sleep – he would rather be out there, splashing through the puddles, possibly with Slugzilla or the cat... or Coraline.

Before Wybie could get his thoughts together and figure out why he thought about Coraline to begin with, there was a light knock on the windowpane. He looked – and there she was, Coraline, in her yellow rainy-day get-up, smiling invitingly at him.

Something hot and almost boiling rose in Wybie's blood. Coraline, a girl, was out there, having fun, while he, a boy, was stuck inside not having fun! This was something that needed to be rectified immediately. Grabbing his rainy-day coat and boots, Wybie raced into the corridor and through the front door of his room, into the heavy rains outside.

In addition, into the first adventure in his life, though back then he did not know it.

[Break]

Coraline slowly opened her eyes and got on her feet – she was no longer dizzy, and the kitchen mirror was back to normal, reflecting just their kitchen, and nothing more. Still, this did not stop Coraline from staring for several moments at it in vain hope of seeing some other scene from the other world, but there was nothing, nothing but a reflection of a girl with red eyes.

"Am I weeping for the Beldam?" Coraline asked her reflection. "After all, that was a wicked old witch... but yes, I probably am. This was wrong. This was wrong!"

Coraline whirled around and ran away from the kitchen to her bedroom. She would stay there for the rest of the day, and so she would not see her new friend Wybie running past the Pink Palaces, pursuing someone who looked vaguely like her in her rainy-day clothes...

[Break]

"Well, that was fun and educational," the Beldam said with a smile that demonstrated all of her teeth to her interlocutors who were still able to communicate with her. The remains of the third, Trillobia of the yellow skin, were lying at the Beldam's feet, where her remains should have laid instead. "Truly, my darling other aunts, every visit of yours is a treat!"

"You!" green-skinned Vyrdahlia recovered first, her ember eyes finally blazing with red flame. "You little human piece of-"

"Quiet," black-skinned giantess, Terraxia, put her hand down hard onto the shoulder of her last surviving compatriot. "We need her now, now that Trillobia is dead."

"But she has still failed! The key to the other world is still lost!"

"It's not lost – Trillobia told me who has it – a foolish little gahonga with big ambitions. Remember this, Christabell – pesky little upstarts with no respect for higher authorities never get anywhere but the grave, less they temper their attitude with humility and listen to those with higher wisdom."

The Beldam kept quiet, her black buttons tied to Terraxia's black coal pits, her mouth a lipless slit.

"Now then," Terraxia continued, taking the Beldam's silence as a sign of agreement. "In a matter of time, we will meet at the assembly of the Unseelie court, where you will be treated accordingly, whether as a rebellious little failure or a proper replacement of the late Trillobia. Think on it, little one, and remember that promptness and proper obeisance to yours truly is the right start to those affairs. Vyrdahlia, we're leaving now."

Green-skinned Vyrdahlia snarled but kept quiet: throughout Terraxia's speech, the Beldam kept her arms on her shovel, the same shovel that she used to put to rest her other mother and Vyrdahlia knew that no matter how sharp her claws were, Christabell's shovel was sharper yet.

As the much-older hags left, the Beldam collapsed from her stance into a puddle. "My girl," she said softly, her voice full of genuine longing, "my Coraline, my darling little girl! I am so sorry, but your mother will need more of your courage to stand strong in the long days ahead – or at least go out with a bang!" and an amazingly joyless smile graced her inhuman lips.

Therefore, still deep in thought, the Beldam retreated to her private chamber, where she got back in her position to watch Coraline.

In addition, it was from there she saw what was going-on.

In addition, she did not like it.

[Break]

Wybie Lowat was getting tired. He also felt lost and confused – he just couldn't keep up with Coraline, and that was just wrong: the grounds at the Pink Palaces just weren't this big, and there was something different about Coraline as well, and where were they, and-

He never saw the green hill between two trees open wide, creating a proper corridor, until it was too late.

To be continued...