Disclaimer: I do now own "The Nightmares Before Christmas" or "Coraline".
Betaed by: Zim'sMostLoyalServant and Trackula.
The Price
Chapter 5
In Stitches
The town was waking up as Coraline accompanied Sally through the twisting streets. In some cases it seemed literal, even a few trees opening their eyes and groaning awake as the twilight deepened toward night. Screams rose from out of sight, but they somehow weren't alarming; with this setting, it was like hearing hammers and drills at a construction site, she supposed.
The spooky inhabitants watched her as they went about their business. A zombie watering wilted flowers from a second floor window paused to watch them go by. Coraline tucked her legs closer, making her steps a tad more awkward. The attention was not hostile, but still…
"They won't bother you, dear. I put word around that you need space and that Jack and I would be helping you settle in. Well, some — several aren't much for following orders, but with me here, most of those will at least pretend to be well behaved," Sally nodded to herself.
"Boss lady," Coraline chuckled, then would have blushed, realizing she had said it aloud. She'd been alone too long, she decided as Sally pointed out their destination.
The building was sunk back into the row of storefronts twisting to their left on the side street. It had a small courtyard centered around a stature of Anubis holding a cup of tea, with three black iron tables arranged around, separated from the street by a short stone fence adorned with mostly withered vines and a short wood gate with an OPEN sign hung on it.
"Welcome to the Dried Leaf Teahouse," Sally said, opening the gate and beckoning Coraline to follow. Soon enough they were inside, and Coraline found herself pausing at the scents wafting over her. Some were pleasant, some puzzling, others best described as exotic, but not overwhelming. It was like a bunch of different instruments playing at once, but not quite clashing or something?
A counter next to the door was manned by a broad-shouldered mummy man who groaned, lifting a stiff arm in greeting from behind an old-timey cash register.
"And happy greeting to you as well, Pepi! Do be a dear and make sure no lookie-lous impose on us?"
The mummy groaned, dust rising from where bandages covered his mouth. Sally giggled into her hand.
"Ever the gentleman of the old school," she said, a shapely mummy woman with silky black hair that reached to her waist beckoning them to follow. Sally greeted her as Neffie and got more of the mummy dialect, which was deeper than Coraline expected from the woman, girl?
Soon they were at a table, and Coraline frowned as a normal dark wood chair was swapped out by the mummy waitress for one like she had used at the Skellingtons.
"It's not special treatment, dear," Sally said, taking her own more traditional seat and picking up a menu off the dusty tablecloth, "In this town, businesses have to be ready to accommodate many different types, and you're hardly the only one to have a more robust lower half or extra legs."
Coraline tried to maintain her sense of unease as she settled into the comfy chair.
"Uhhh," Coraline looked at the menu. She had expected hieroglyphics, but the cursive English on these was so fancy she squinted reading through the items and wasn't sure if they were as bizarre as read or she was reading it wrong. Crocodile eye iced tea couldn't be a thing, could it?
"Oh, Anu! What a pleasant surprise," Sally perked up. Coraline turned and was greeted with the sight of an elderly mummy woman wearing an elaborate gold necklace, with shoulder-length dust-colored hair. Like the other two, her eyes were the only uncovered parts of her face, and they fairly twinkled at Coraline.
Moaning, she reached out and pinched the face mask.
"Ow!" Coraline said, more stunned by the fact she felt the pain than the pain itself. The old mummy woman unmistakably chuckled, releasing the mask to stroke Coraline's hair.
"Now, Anu, she wants to be human again, it's too soon to talk of a successor."
*rammmmoan*
"Well, she is adorable. But she's had a terrible time. I know it's irregular, but as she has never really sampled our cuisine, I was hoping you could prepare a sample platter of sorts. Nothing too extreme, a calm but interesting tour of taste, if you please."
Sally smiled at the answering moan. Anu patted Coraline on the head and shuffled back to a beaded doorway, where Coraline glimpsed the waitress peeking through. Coraline then glanced over and caught the cashier also stealing a look.
"The mummies are among the oldest population here, not just in establishment but membership. They're one of the few people in the realm who remember the Beldam for what she was, as well as what she became. For Anu in particular, it's a bit like meeting the relative of a long-lost friend."
"…Her fans," Coraline deadpanned.
"Anu fought against her alongside Jack, Coraline. But that doesn't mean she forgot the better days. You'll understand when you're older, how even as things change the past sill matters to people in a way words can't easily catch. Besides, you'll find mummies in general are quite amiable, if a bit formal. Very tidy, too — there's a reason most of them are either shopkeepers or realtors."
"Realtors?" Coraline asked, before a number of customers came in and she was distracted by the sight of assorted horrors chatting or sitting silently at tables, acting very much like restaurant goers grabbing a bite before their day, er night, started.
X X X
The food was weird, but Coraline found her appetite on the three plate spread with samples. It was easy if she didn't look much at the food, focus on the smell and the oddly flavorful taste.
After that and three cups of tea, it was back to walking the town. The streets all had names fitting the horror. Some were amusing, like Blood Drive turning into Clot Way. Others gave a sense of mild menace, like Dead End Way, mostly flanked by graveyards. Others were just descriptive, like Witches Parkway or Troll Toll Turnpike, leading out of town.
The tour ended with Sally declaring she needed to get back to the house, as Jack would need to get work done before dinner, and that wouldn't happen watching the kids on his own.
The idea of Cat helping wasn't brought up, and Coraline could guess why.
"Of course, if you want to carry on on your own, that's fine," Sally said, adjusting the shallow basket holding a few odd purchases she'd made on their outing.
"What, by myself?" Coraline asked, surprised.
"Sure, with Boogie gone, they aren't any really dangerous residents these days, so long as you stay in the town boundaries. And most anyone can give you directions back to the house if you get lost. Though I'd have to insist on Zero accompanying you, just in case."
"Mrs. Skellington, we didn't bring the dog," Coraline reminded, rubbing her front two legs together slightly.
By way of answer, Sally pulled out a dogwhistle shaped like a skull and smiled.
"No, I think I'll head back too, it's a lot to take in."
"Alright then."
X X X
"Well Coraline, you seem perturbed. Is it really all that bad?" Cat asked as Coraline lifted the black tablecloth to peek under the end table.
"Not bad, so much as it seems everything's trying to mess with me. Not only am I this thing, but now I'm in a Halloween town, and I've been drafted to play hide and 'scream' with skeleton kids while their mother makes us all dinner and their father is apparently in a meeting on how best to scare today's teenagers."
"A reasonable sequence of events, if you ask me. But then, as you were there, you should know that."
"…And how am I losing a game to kids?!"
"Maybe you are just bad at games like this?"
"Hey, I beat the Beldam, didn't I?"
"Yes, but these are children 'you' face now…" Cat said, not averting his eyes as the youngest Skellington daughter shimmied out from under the china cabinet behind Coraline.
"BOO!" the girl shouted. With a somewhat metallic shriek, Coraline shot up. Cat's tail swished, looking up as her hanging upside sown from the ceiling, feet firmly on a beam.
"…and children are a very different kind of opponent from crafty old monsters."
"I got her!" the girl shouted.
"Again? Samhain, this is boring when we're never found," JJ complained, pulling himself piece by piece from a large vase to put his cap back on.
"It's your house, of course you two are good at hiding in it," Coraline complained, gingerly making her way to a wall to walk down to the carpet.
"Well, even though you haven't won, let's switch for a bit, you hide and try to get us to scream," the adorable skeleton girl suggested.
"That works, start the count!"
Later:
'This, is awkward,' Coraline thought as the dinner began after Jack said an odd grace to Samhain. It wasn't the food; the pond scum soup, as it was called, for the first course looked terrible but smelled good and tasted better. And she's quickly learned looks were the most unreliable thing around here.
And the awkwardness wasn't yet again being served great food in a magical world. The Other World, before its cracks started to show, was like a theme park, everything made to cater to you, all glittering and glamorous; but fake if you scratched the surface. Halloween Town might have secrets, but they were the casual secrets of a house you are a guest at and told not to go into any rooms with the door closed. An honest kind of secrecy that was impersonal to you.
And frankly, if they wanted to lure her into a false sense of security, they wouldn't be quite so freaky. Like Junior being admonished to not play with his head at the table, a three part impromptu bit of juggling with his newly empty soup bowl, his skull, and a bowling pin whose origins she'd rather not explore.
With Jack reasserting control at the table, the oldest daughter sniffed and admonished her brother like any big sister Coraline imagined. Not for the first time, she pondered the thought of ever having a sibling of her own. Wybie would call it the allure of the unknown, useless and probably bad for you, but so's candy. And like candy, you can't help but indulge in the wondering.
"So, Coraline. Sally tells me you gave her a bit of a fright, popping from the loosened vent cover. Ah, a classic!" Jack practically cheered, brandishing his spoon idly.
"I, well, I thought she was one of the kids."
"Playtime was done, dear. But still, that was quite the spring! Didn't realize you could fit in there."
"Yeah. Sorry about that."
"For what?" Sally said, tilting her head. Coraline sighed and hoped it wasn't too rude to go back to her soup rather than answer.
Yeah, another difference between here and the Other World. If that had been a theme park, this was a foreign land. As nice as the people might be, the way they did things was just too different for you to forget you were out of place.
"So, Jack. Any progress?"
"…Not as such, but the witch sisters stopped by today with some old ledgers and bindings. They had been gathering dust in their rear attic for quite some time, and they have no real idea what they are. So they figured if my answer seemed to be nowhere, the place to look was in papers they knew nothing about. Ah, the wisdom of the elders," Jack nodded appreciatively. His family nodded along save for Junior, who rolled his eyes like any bored young boy. Quite the skill, as he had no eyes in the first place, Coraline recalled with confusion.
Coraline looked down into her soup at her reflection; the mask did nothing to hide her metal face, or the porcelain scalp with her hair yarn embedded in it. The sight made her replace her spoon and push the bowl away.
"Miss Coraline?" the little skeleton girl asked, seated next to her. She sounded so cute, Coraline almost reached over to pat her head.
"Sally? I think I might want to visit your shop tomorrow. Just to see what you might have in mind for that covering."
"Oh my! So soon?"
"…Why wait? Not like I'm going to like this any better," Coraline said, gesturing to her metal body.
"But you look so cool. And you can probably squeeze anywhere your head fits. Like I can!" Junior piped up.
From there, the conversation meandered onto topics ranging from where he shouldn't stick his head to a number of vampires grappling with fang rot, and proposed renovation to the pool of blood, with an old gargoyle concerned the new look would be too modern with "fancy metal plumbing".
Soon enough it was bedtime again, and Jack looked in on her silently as she settled down, wordlessly sending Zero in. Coraline frowned a bit at the pooch poltergeist, but didn't say anything as he circled her on the bed before curling against the woven pipe of her abdomen.
X X X
Sally considered the note as she and Jack set the breakfast table. Jack had been pouring through books through bright hours of the day, trying to find some solid lead on a cure for Coraline. She'd needed to tear him from that — the faint scent of success was quite alluring to her husband, the tiny threads convincing him he was one tug away from the rope being in his grasp. His Christmas research was the first example to come to mind, but it was hardly the only one. She smiled, recalling how at times he got so caught up in planning a date between them.
Being pulled away for breakfast preparation was a decent excuse, and thankfully the Black Cat had wandered off somewhere. The Cat knew his stuff, but Sally ultimately simply did not like that feline.
"You know you can just say no," Jack told her. He was inspecting an orange lightly dusted with mold before deciding to peel it.
"Well, father says it would only be measurements and such, nothing invasive. Should be quick and safe."
"He may say that, but he can be quite obsessive in his passion, you know," Jack reminded. Sally gave him a look at the sheer lack of irony in his tone for those words. Shrugging, she looked up toward Coraline's current room.
"I think I'll leave the choice to her. It's as good a way as any to see the town more and meet more people. After all, it sounds like your cure will take awhile to find."
X X X
"Wow, now that, is a mad scientist's lab," Coraline said, pointing to Sally's younger days home. The brass spider girl had taken some time to treat herself to a bit of polishing after breakfast and, spotting some tools and material Sally had left out, had knitted herself a grey and black plaid scarf.
Sally had been stunned at the deed. The girl hadn't been at it five minutes and made a scarf Sally wouldn't say was up to her own standards, but was far above the average. Jack let slip over breakfast about the lair Coraline had made from scraps and junk.
Sally needed to get this girl a proper setup for crafting!
But first, there was the fact Coraline had agreed to what she termed a doctor's appointment.
When Sally pressed the doorbell underneath the sign "D. Finklelstein DoMG", it made the sound of an engine revving. Coraline didn't find that particularly Halloweeny… then came the sound of the backfire, so much like a gunshot, making her jump. Sally, of course, didn't seem to notice.
The door swung open, and rather than the hunchbacked Igor Coraline had been expecting, she saw it was the same ugly woman with big lips that had been pushing the mad doctor around on the day she arrived.
"Ah, Sally and the Coraline. Welcome, welcome, so glad you could come. My dear darling has been quite eager to study you, young one."
"I hope you have both been well, Jewel?" Sally asked, giving the woman a short hug.
"Certainly, fewer explosions than normal, and no creation rebellion worth mentioning."
"Uh, hi?" Coraline said, holding up her hand.
"…is that an invitation for one of those high fives the young hooligans do these days?"
"Uh, it isn't supposed to be?"
"Excellent. With those eternally young tricksters in the trio running amok, we need more well-mannered youngsters fit to carry on the grand traditions of chaos, disorder, and terror. Next thing you know, they'll be selling actual chocolate chip cookies in the market! Why, I tell you…"
Coraline took Sally's silent cue and tuned out the old person rant as they followed the woman into and up in the house of horrors. The stone walls were adorned with glassed displays of specimens or sketches and portraits of the bizarre. Well, the bizarre and a magnificent oil painting of Sally standing in for the Mona Lisa or something under moonlight.
The doctor was in a stone-walled lab full of Tesla coils, bubbling vials, and cables visibly surging with electrical current while he banged on some kind of futuristic trombone or something with a monkey wrench.
"Master! The girl has arrived!" the hunchback assistant said, tugging on the Doctor's arm.
"Hmm, so she has. We'll deal with your punishment later! If you want to be a drum you impertinent instrument, we'll see how well you can take it!" he threatened the gadget, pulling open a drawer in the table and slamming it inside before closing it. Grabbing the handle on his chair, he stirred its motor to life and rolled over to them, going down a pair of stairs, giggling but unperturbed by the bouncing. And his wife put cups of tea in their hands before serving the doctor.
"Thank you darling, hospitable and considerate as ever. Oh, and just a hint of Jim's Snag," the doctor praised, sniffing the tea before taking a sip.
"Lovely," Sally said, taking her own sip. Coraline took one and was stunned.
"Since when does tea taste this good?" she slipped. The mad doctor's wife seemed to blink behind her goggles, then threw back her head and laughed, arms spread, striking a dynamic pose as lightning practically burst forth from the Tesla coils.
"Since a genius such as myself took to brewing it, dear child! Cooking is the science of chemistry interwoven with the abstract art of taste and preference. Weak-minded fools follow the recipe, but those as great as I could write our own and stand in dominion over lesser culinaries, who can only weep at their weak palate's unpleasing efforts!"
She made her exit, still cackling and wringing her hands.
"My best work. No question," the doctor sighed, looking after her.
"So, you two have met, correct?" Sally asked.
"Just briefly," Coraline confirmed.
"Well, I am Dr. Finkelstein, the greatest scientific mind in Halloween Town. My dear Jewel being my only equal; after all, I made her myself."
"…Cool," Coraline said, giving him a wary thumbs up.
"Now, enough dilly-dallying, time is a resource not to be idly squandered. On the table if you please, and we will begin measuring."
"Measuring what, exactly?" Coraline asked, easily climbing onto a a table covered by a white sheet.
"Anything that can be measured, without invasiveness. First of all, the scream," the doctor said, taking out an odd device and flipping a switch on it.
"Scream?" Coraline asked.
"Is there an echo in here?" the doctor demanded, before raising his arm and making a chopping motion. Coraline screamed as the table shot into the air, stopping a few inches short of the high ceiling.
"Very good, very interesting," the doctor said, checking the reading as the table descended.
"Kindly stick to the measuring tape, father," Sally said, flicking him on the metal cap of his head.
Later:
"And done," Sally declared, brushing past her father to offer Coraline a hand down from the table. This table had visible legs, at the young lady's insistence to avoid any more sudden movements.
"What!? But I was about to get the measurements in cubits!" the doctor objected, taking a new measuring tape from his wife.
"How many ways are you going to measure me, anyway?" Coraline asked, more irritated than intimidated by the mad scientist as she got to the floor.
"One can never measure enough! I'm not like those fools who think 2 + 2 will always equal four! If you don't check, you'll miss the most interesting stories numbers have to tell," he grumbled.
"Well, you've had your time. Coraline and I need to get to the shop, we don't know how long this will take."
"You'd better get her back here some time soon, Sally. Science waits for no one!"
"But you can!" Sally said with a wave and tone that Coraline found herself appreciating as they left the lab.
X X X
Sally loved Jack dearly, but she could not quite wrap her head around how he had become bored with Halloween Town all those years ago. Maybe it was her youth relative to him, but the town much less the countryside beyond never seemed to fail to intrigue her in some way. Whether it was a new sight, or satisfaction with the familiar, the world seemed ever as fresh and crisp as autumn air.
Even after so long being able to explore the town, she did not presume to know it utterly, even if she felt she knew it well. For the town, it only covered so much of the map and no more, but there was always room for one more. Which meant over time, it had become quite a bit bigger on the inside than its outside was. And those maps were of dubious caliber when exploring, more a matter of art than tools for traversing.
Narrow alleys, when turned onto led into wide or twisting streets, overgrown gates when opened revealed vast spooky parks, and dusty doors could uncover lost wings. And of course, there were all the ways trick-or-treaters and the odd older believer stumbled briefly into town. For them, it would be dreams vividly yet half-remembered, or moments of inspiration whose source they could not find. Some would recall well, recounting years later of that street or that neighborhood that was so amazing casually, only to have their peers from back then puzzled, telling them there was no such thing.
Yes, it was a wonder, this place. And Sally had delayed marrying Jack to properly be a part of it herself, rather than leap from the Doctor's household to the role of Queen Consort, such as it were.
Naturally, setting up shop had been the next reasonable step. Not so hard, as abandoned creepy buildings were quite common. It was quite the task though, to find the 'right' one. It was only after establishing her shop and making a success of it, she decided to let her courtship with Jack go the next stage. She certainly could have skipped ahead, but she felt it was better to take things in their turn.
Which made her wary of Coraline being pushed too quickly. The girl had been thrust from her life into nightmares most foul, not once but twice, with few if any to help her. Jack's eye was on a solution, which Sally conceded was proper, but she felt the girl had a lot of ground to cover between here and there. Well, no matter; being a couple wasn't just teaming up, it was about dividing the load to make it doable.
And Coraline was taking things in more stride than Sally expected. She liked to think she had a better handle on humans than most, and Coraline seemed to take all this in too much stride for someone who'd only been touched by dark magic, and the Black Cat. But she was hardly afraid anymore after such a short time. Surprised, disgusted, and annoyed, certainly, but not the anxiety she'd expect even in a new place with only the Cat for familiarity, much less all this.
Her guess was that it was the magic easing things along. The Beldam had been a daughter of the Realm, of course, and now Coraline, called already by some as The Coraline, was a successor through slaying. The magic might be welcoming, even embracing her. Her quick improvement in health and vitality may already just be from moving from a realm she didn't fit to one she fit very well. And that could mean the Realm of Halloween's primordial forces would be loathe to part with her, whatever the Pumpkin King desired, much less Coraline herself.
A trumpet going off near her face made Sally almost jump, settling for a hand to her mouth and dishpan wide eyes, while Coraline sprang behind her, clutching her scarf.
Before them, the Mayor stood with a happy face showing, and lowered his trumpet, a majority of the town inhabitants seeming to be behind him.
"Queen Sally, the Coraline. We are pleased to present you with the first ever temporary guest song performance! Hit it, Mavis!" The Mayor said into his megaphone.
In their defense, it was quite catchy Sally had to admit, as Coraline was literally swept away over the town by a musical number. Leaving her with the Mayor, humming along to the song.
"Just drop her by my shop when you're done, I'll be waiting," she ordered, hoping it wasn't too much for Coraline. She and Jack really should have seen that one coming.
One Musical Number Later:
Coraline let Sally adjust her scarf and dust the brightly colored cobwebs off of her frame.
"That was… something. Guess I can say I took the official tour now?"
"I hope they didn't overdo it too much?"
"Overdone, yeah. Overdone. But not quite too much, just a bit… 'wow'?"
"They can be quite an excitable lot. I'm sorry, we should have realized with this delay it would give them time to build more steam, as it were."
"Hey, don't get me wrong, that put the performances in the Other World to shame. It's just, well, you don't expect to get pulled into a musical number where I come from."
"Well of course they do better than the Beldam, they're basically Jack's troupe, and I'll wager he always had more showmanship in his tiniest metacarpal than she did in her whole frame," Sally said, striking a casual pose Coraline could only think of as "proud wife". She remembered her own mother showing something similar when her dad saved her from a wasp nest she'd bumped into when slipping on the edge of a trash pit during a walk.
The thought of her parents cast a bit of gray on everything, and Sally had to tap her shoulder to get her walking.
"Well, despite delays, it's time you saw my shop and we started seeing about getting you some threads. Nothing like a new outfit to put a new spin on a situation."
Having seen a bit more of the Doctor's lab than she wanted, Coraline was not particularly looking forward to his daughter's workshop. The building stood on the far end of a square of Halloween Town, a stone structure adorned with gargoyles of severed limbs at the corners and leaning noticeably to one side.
Sally commented on how nice it was they were able to build so it would quickly acquire that "Old Spooky" look. Opening the likewise slanted front door, whose duty window held a "So sorry, we're closed" sign, Coraline followed the doll woman in.
They passed quickly through a snug showroom. A counter of glass and wood displaying some samples of thread on spools, clothing and gloves, while the walls were adorned with pictures of outfits of bizarre proportions. Then they entered the backroom, or the workroom as Mrs. Skellington called it.
For a moment, Coraline could have sworn her jaw hit the floor again. She reached up to her cloth face and rubbed it, careful not to get her pointy fingers in her mouth. It would be her luck, to stab her mouth; who'd even know how to fix wounds in the cloth mouth on a brass girl? Well, considering where she was, it wouldn't be too surprising if they had a guy for that. But still! She'd rather not.
But this place! She felt like Belle in the library scene in 'Beauty and the Beast'. But this was a heaven of shelves sagging with thread, string, lace, twine, and cloth of all sorts. Some of the spools the size of barrels! Oh, and bags of stuffing sorted by material! And a cabinet open, showing a veritable armory of needles, pins, and scissors.
"Hmm," Sally hummed, leaning down to wave a hand in front of the temporary young nightmare's faces. It seemed to be a happy malfunction, but she best tear this crooked stitch out straight away so they could get to work. So she clapped her hands twice and cleared her throat in her best mother tone; that got Coraline's attention.
"This room is amazing," Coraline breathed out.
"Well, what did you expect?" Sally giggled. Reaching the massive worktable, Sally pulled out a drawer and withdrew some scissors.
"Right. So let's get something proper to hang on that frame, shall we?" Sally remarked, eyes sweeping over all the material they had to work with.
"Now then, I keep an index of all my stock. Would you like to look through it? Or do you prefer to hunt and dig for your treasure?" Sally asked. Coraline turned to look over the vast expanse, and gave a sly grin.
Soon enough, the worktable was piled high with material.
"That ended up being a lot," Coraline admitted, sounding a bit self-conscious.
"That's good, better to set aside what we don't need than go back looking for something we missed. Now let's leave this for the moment and consider design."
X X X
Coraline dipped her index needle into the ink pot and made a crude drawing of herself, and crumpled up the paper. Sally laid a stack of paper next to the girl. The one on top showing Coraline from the side, above, and below. Lifting the sheet, Coraline saw an identical paper below it.
"You don't have a copy machine, do you?" Coraline asked in awe, putting a hand to her mouth. Sally giggled and pulled out her own pin, taking a seat at the stool as Coraline climbed on the table to watch.
X X X
Taking final measurements of Coraline with her measuring tape, Sally nodded and pivoted on her stool to make some adjustments to her plan.
Reaching into a crate, Sally pulled a spool the size of a coffee can, made of black iron. Shaking her head, she put it back. Next, she pulled out one of polished, nearly shining metal. Shielding her eyes, she put that back.
Then she pulled one made out of brass out, and smiled.
X X X
Snapping the clamps in place, Sally gave the spool an experimental spin. Coraline laughed, shaking a little. Sally stopped the spinning with the touch of a finger, and pulled her hand out of the abdomen.
"This little spider will have her thread on tap everywhere," Sally declared. Coraline's torso rotated to look at the mass that had vexed her so much. Experimentally, she reached in and, as Sally said, the spool came free with the right set of twists.
"So, if you don't like it, you can take it out," Sally reminded her.
"And that?" Coraline asked, pointing to the front half of her abdomen, where what was essentially a leather traveling bag had been stapled inside the frame.
"Think of it as an extra purse," Sally said. By way of demonstration, putting a rotten apple into the bag and flipping the flap shut.
X X X
Sally sat patiently while Coraline crawled over the cloth, the spools of the chosen threads already set aside. Finally, Coraline returned, shoulders slumped, brass squeaking. Sally would need to check if she needed oiling.
"It's great, but none of it seems quite right for this," Coraline admitted. Sally didn't get angry, she got intrigued. So she asked a few more questions on what the girl wanted.
Sally laughed at herself for not realizing it sooner when it hit her.
She told the confused girl to wait there.
Sally Skellington felt it in her seams! That sensation of electric triumph which she shared with her creator. The moment when that puzzle piece you have been circling back to so many times, finally has its place revealed. True, she thought as she opened a particular walk-in closet, you did not technically know for sure until you actually put the piece in place. But the sensation had yet to fail her!
The table thumped as Sally dropped the armloads of fake fur on it. But she only had eyes for Coraline. Watching as her buttons practically twinkled, and her clever little fingers practically danced over the material in front of her.
"Soft," Coraline sighed happily.
"Right then, let's get on with making a proper seam sister of you," Sally urged.
X X X
"What do you think?" Sally asked, holding the piece up. It hung limply from her hands, a thing of bright yellow and dark blue, with a patch of white peaking through the folds.
"Uh," Coraline slipped.
"Hmm, right you are. We can't really tell anything until you try it on," Sally said, holding it out to Coraline.
"Wow, huh," Coraline said, taking their creation and holding it.
Now that the mania of making it had passed, getting ready to put it on, it just really hit her again how absurd everything was. I mean, Halloween Town, she thought. It was like some darker version of a holiday special come to life.
Was she crazy? That seemed more likely. After all, being a monster doomed to hide in the woods, who wouldn't-
"Coraline?" Sally put a gentle hand on what passed for a shoulder. It jolted Coraline a bit. But she settled, looking at the stitched woman, as if expecting her to collapse into dust like poor Other Wybie. Cause could there really be anything good in this magic stuff that didn't just crumble away when you needed it?
Sally didn't crumble, and when Coraline didn't try and push her off, ran a gentle hand through the girl's hair. Coraline took a deep breath and waved her off, nodding her head.
"Would you rather get some rest first?" Sally asked, "I know I can be a bit pushy, and there is no reason whatsoever to rush into things. Whatever pace you're comfortable with, Coraline."
"No, let's get me stitched up," Coraline declared.
The hole left for her to slip in seemed too small, but putting first two then four legs through, Coraline was reminded how slender her frame was. Only the abdomen gave any issue, and that was the work of a moment to slip back into its proper place.
All six legs in place, Coraline took off her mask and scarf handing them to Sally. She still wasn't used to how easily and dramatically she could bend at the right angles. But that only meant it felt unnatural, not that it was hard to slip her upper body in.
The inside of the fur felt soft and a bit scratchy at the same time. Arms folded over her empty chest, she wiggled and jerked herself into place. First the left arm then the right into their sleeves. Then with a shove, her head slid through the neck and popped into the head of the fake fur-skin.
It was tight enough that, like the mask, sensation entered the frame. Reaching up to her face, she could feel her arm inside the sleeve, but her face felt like it was covered in fur. About a minute of fiddling, with her brass needles poking through the hidden holes as designed, let her slide the buttons through their holes on the new face.
"That's better," Coraline said with a sigh. She ran her hands through her hair. Well, the hair they had fashioned after the hair on the frame at least. It really didn't feel like she was wearing a mask. Though she was able to pull a good bit of the cheek away before it snapped back in place.
"Mirror?" Sally asked, gesturing to a corner devoted to fittings.
"Let's finish up first." After all it wasn't really a sung fit. Coraline did not want to be pointy and sharp under a lair of fabric. A little stuffing was needed in place of guts and what not, to fill this look out.
"Alright then. Say when," Sally said, pulling a big ol' burlap bag labeled "cotton" out from under the work table, and loosening her stitches in the arm to better stretch. Satisfied, Sally untied the top of the bag and grabbed a handful of the white cotton and shoved it through the hole in the fur suit.
It was an odd sensation for Coraline. Sally's arm slithered through her, stuffing each leg and padding the abdomen and torso tactically. Feeling herself fill up, the frame fading away to a feeling of the fur-covered body. The stuffing seemed to make something click in her senses or something.
It felt good, she realized with a smile. At some point, she'd become used to just being wires, pipes, rods and blades, with only a few solid pieces. This feeling of not just solidness, but softness, was like a blanket around her. How long had it been that her body had nit felt off in some way? Ever since the Beldam died, she'd been drying up and hardening. The magic acting as a curse, making her more like that monster.
Well, here that was being undone, she thought with a certain savage satisfaction. For the moment the nature of that undoing could be ignored.
"Coraline? Don't you think that's enough?" Sally asked. Coraline opened her eyes and turned to see Sally holding the empty bag of cotton stuffing.
"Oh! When?" Coraline smiled sheepishly.
"Mirror?" Sally asked again. Coraline nodded and followed Sally across the room to the corner that was partially closed off by a broken circle of full length mirrors around a large wood pedestal marked with an emblem of Sally's face and initials on the side.
'A shop logo?' Coraline thought, amused. Wondering if Sally had business competition she advertised to compete with.
Stepping onto the pedestal while Sally hung back, Coraline took a look at herself.
"Wow, that is different."
She would hardly be mistaken for the eerie brass frame spider now, Coraline admitted. The hair style and material was as much the same as Sally could manage. Which meant it was essentially the same thing. Other than that and the button eyes…
She was fluffy, a fuzzy-looking spider instead of a gaunt one. Her abdomen was raincoat yellow, with two thin curving dark blue stripes that matched her hair. And a crest in the shape of a triangle with a round hole of yellow in it.
Her legs were a uniform dark blue. Coraline lifted one to see the padded ends of the feet, some kind of soft leather. She slid a leg tip out and pulled it back. No damage visible; Sally was amazing.
Her torso was dominantly blue, but with speckles of yellow mixed in with Sally's mad skills.
Her neck was solid blue, but her face and arms were a white felt material, a bit fuzzy to the touch, but not hair like the rest of her.
Oh, and yeah, she looked a bit overstuffed. Her abdomen and legs were rather rounded, and were squishy to the touch, though bouncing back easily. Her torso was a tad chubby, and even her face and neck had filled out a bit.
"…Shall I take some out, get you close to your original?" Sally asked. Coraline realized she had earlier described herself as a scrawny kid.
"No, let's leave it for now. Beldam was lean and mean, being… cuddly, might be the best rejection," Coraline said thoughtfully.
"You shouldn't define yourself by defying others, Coraline."
"Maybe. But there's no point trying to be normal again. I'm not and I never will be till Jack finds something. Let's go with this for now," Coraline said, her voice slipping a bit.
"Very well," Sally said, stitching up the stuffing hole. It didn't really make Coraline feel much more different, but in her mind at least, it brought completion when Sally clipped that last thread.
"Be sure to take notes for when we do the others," Sally said, as Coraline kept looking herself over in the mirrors.
"Others?" Coraline asked, puzzled.
"Dear me! You can open that seam and slip out whenever you like, Coraline. Why not have different skins to wear? I don't have only one dress, after all," Sally giggled. Coraline looked at her with a cracked smile.
"…Oh, that crossed the weird line, didn't it?" Sally gasped.
"Yep. Let's pretend you didn't ask that body swapping question right now, okay?" Coraline asked, forcing her face into a natural look.
"Okay," Sally said. It was really weird to work with someone with as strange expectations for the world as this former mortal.
X X X
Jack tapped the page he had just finished in the dusty old journal laid out on his desk, and drew his teeth into a grin. Then a giggle. And then leaned back in his desk chair, letting a full on cackle summon a thunder-crack.
"Is that good news, or has Sally been slacking, letting you get entirely too little sleep?" Cat asked. Jack cut off his chortling, and the thunderstorm, seeming to feel awkward, made itself scarce as Jack adjusted his tie.
"Cat, despite your cynicism, I have a breakthrough."
"Oh, nudged a vase, did you?" Cat said, leaping onto the desk and taking a seat next to the book to start grooming. Eyeing the cat, Jack picked the journal up to forestall any sitting upon it, and flicked back one page.
"This is a journal of one Skelleyton Seamus, an aide to Samhain himself in his later years."
"Ah, I remember him, met his end to a rather large dog that an Earth priestess was using as a mount a few realms over. He always wanted to go out memorably, nutty that one."
"…Anyway, here he records how on one sacred night, they granted the petition of a young lady in red who wanted an unbreakable wolf's curse lifted from her. Even Samhain could not break the spell, but according to Seamus, with the Rite of Disenchantment, the unbreakable spell 'was poured out from her into the soil of the Realm, freeing the girl while leaving the magic intact to be reborn from the Realm in time.' It's the solution, Cat. I can't break the magic on Coraline, but that's not needed if I can move it! We'd even be returning a lost piece to the Realm of Halloween in the bargain," Jack practically danced around the room before stopping to watch Coraline walking up to the house, garbed in fabulous new skin with Sally practically radiating pride next to her.
"Interesting. How does it work?"
Jack slumped so quickly Cat half-expected his rib cage to slide out a pants leg.
"Skelleyton doesn't describe the ritual. After that, he spends two pages describing a banquet held in honor of Haonlblt the Horrid's 100th fraznying."
"Sounds like him. So you still don't know what to do?"
"Well, I have a thread to follow, and it's more than I had yesterday, so we are moving in the right direction."
"Hmm, perhaps you are."
"…I will fix this, Black Cat. I will not let her down."
"We shall see, Jack," Cat said as Jack marked his spot in the book before closing it and taking his leave. Cat promptly leapt atop the closed book and thoughtfully licked a paw.
"But yours is not the only ambition that matters in this matter, young Jack. Hmm, something lurks. Either it's still distant or quite small, or… Well, no matter. The mouse comes out of its hole when it does, and nothing for trying to hurry it," Cat nodded to himself, well pleased with the solitary chat, before curling up to nap on the old leather.
Author's Note:
Happy belated Halloween! Hope this treat being late doesn't make it less sweet.
Well now that Coraline is suited up next on the agenda will be her seriously doing some exploring like the brave girl she is and jack's quest too return her humanity now has a heading. Hope it won't be until next Halloween that we check back with this spooky duo and their fine company.
