A/N: Here's the next chapter. It's shorter than the last one because the climax is coming.
Wybie hesitantly knocked on the Jones's door, shifting nervously. He pulled his coat further around him, glancing out at the gray sky. Three weeks. Nearing a month. Summer would end soon enough. School would start. Maybe he wouldn't need to be as watchful. Maybe Coraline wouldn't need him as much, and she would be free to leave his side and make new friends.
He didn't like the idea, strangely enough.
Mrs. Jones opened the door. She was probably the only adult in the house, and it seemed as though she were about to leave. She smiled at him, murmuring a quiet hello and gesturing him inside.
Wybie was right. She left as soon as the door closed.
He was used to it. He took his muddy shoes off at the doorway, walking up to Coraline's room and keeping a safe distance from the parlor.
It wasn't a surprise when he opened the door to see Coraline hard at work with a small doll. She was always with a needle and thread these days.
Before announcing himself, he breathed the air silently. He couldn't smell alcohol. There was a whiff of smoke, but it was fainter than usual. Wybie couldn't help but smile. If anything else, this work with the Other Mother was helping his friend. She was now a full three without a sip of alcohol.
Coraline looked up at him, absently stroking the cat at her side and smiling. She had also become much more cheerful. "Good morning, Wybie. Come on in."
He sat on her bed slowly, looking at the doll she was making attentively. It looked oddly familiar… "What's that?"
She looked up, smiling and showing him the half-finished girl doll. "It's the sweet ghost girl, pre-buttons. Your grandma's twin sister. I thought that she would like to have something to remember her by." Coraline gestured to two glass brown eyes on her bedside table, the perfect size for the doll. "The Other Mother showed me how to make glass eyes. I don't like working with buttons."
A shadow crossed her face, and subconsciously, she fingered the knife at her belt that she had taken to carrying around constantly. It was just a mark of her continual distrust of her new teacher, no matter how much she learned.
Wybie grinned. "Wow! That's really nice of you, Jonesy. I bet she'll love it."
Coraline flashed him a smile before putting the doll aside. "It's not as good as I think it can be, so I'm waiting until it's the best I can make it." She shook herself off, stretching slightly. "Other Wybie is still telling me to stay away, but I think that he's just nervous. I beat her once. I can do it again. And he'll be able to come back."
Wybie smiled hesitantly, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. "How's Vera and Alfred?"
"They're great. Vera understands that I was out of it when I hit her, so she has totally forgiven me as long as I don't get that drunk around her. But I'm not touching a bottle again."
"Really? Th-That's great!" Wybie sputtered, breaking into a huge grin after a flash of surprise. She had never actually declared something like that. It had always been half-hearted attempts. But she never validated it with words. There was a surge of hope in his chest at the new development. In short, Wybourne Lovat was ecstatic at the news.
Coraline smiled. "No need to lose your cool over it." But it was obvious she didn't mind his enthusiasm. "No. I'm not going to drink again. And you and Cat will help me. Cat's already hidden all the bottles—you just need to keep an eye on me when he can't."
"I sure will, Jonesy," Wybie said, grinning like an idiot. "I'll help with whatever you want me to."
He felt himself blush when he realized the implications of his statement, but Coraline didn't seem to notice. He only blushed harder when he realized that he meant it. "That's great, Wybie." Coraline looked up, her eyes glazing slightly as she looked at the setting sun. "I…"
"It's okay."
Coraline looked up sharply. Wybie hugged his knees, smiling slightly and tilting his head. "You're worried that your dreams are made by you. You're worried that the Other Me is not really alive. But you can't check to make sure. But I can." He nodded. "I'll go to the Other World while you're with the Other Mother and see if I can find him. I'll make sure he's okay."
"You'd be in danger again."
Wybie smiled wryly. "So're you. Hey, if a copy of me was able to sacrifice himself for you, I think that I can try handling something like this, right?"
Coraline looked up slowly, smiling and cocking her head. "You don't need to keep proving yourself." She punched his shoulder, shaking her head. "So is tonight okay for you?"
"Sure. Gramma trusts me more around this place."
"Great. I think that she's planning on teaching me how to bring dolls to life—if everything goes okay, then you will just need to make sure he's okay and you can go through the tunnel and go back home."
Wybie nodded. Coraline smiled, but there was something weird in her eyes. Something dark. Hatred.
Wybie realized after a moment that the look wasn't directed at him. Coraline was directing it at herself.
Chilled slightly, he looked at the sky outside her window. "It's not quite night yet. So, do you want to play outside?"
"Sure."
---
"Coraline, why did you do this?"
Dr. Windsor leaned forward, his bushy brow coming together worriedly. Coraline held out her right hand, frowning in confusion at all the puncture marks she had put there with a needle. "I… don't know. He doesn't have his right hand. Why should I?"
She prodded her hand slightly, examining the red dots. "My Other Father doesn't have his life. Why should I?"
Coraline let her hands fall into her lap. "The Ghost Children didn't have their souls. Why should I?"
Dr. Windsor sighed, scribbling something on his clipboard. "You're angry at yourself for surviving."
"That'd be stupid."
"Not stupid, but silly. Psychology is often silly when you think about it." He sighed gently. "You think that you don't deserve to live, but you owe it to the people who saved you to do so. So you make yourself as miserable as possible so you are sufficiently punished for being alive."
"That's stupid." She looked at the ceiling. "I'm going to save him. The Other Mother can do whatever the hell she wants with me after that."
He sighed gently.
---
"Giving life to a doll, in essence, is simple."
Coraline looked down at the lifeless boy doll in her hands. It looked like a traditional Native American stereotype, with a big feathered headdress, red skin, henna tattoos, braids, and a bow and arrow. She assumed that few people imagined Native Americans without eyes.
The Other Mother held up the pair of button eyes, grinning in a disturbing way, and gestured Coraline closer. "You put your mark on it and it's yours." She flipped the buttons over so that the bottoms were facing upwards. She reached out one of her sharp needle hands and took a paintbrush from a pot of brown paint, slowly painting a small design on the back of the button.
Without pausing, she sewed it on to the Native American doll. Immediately, the doll jerked slightly their hands, looking up at them. The light flashed over his new button eyes.
"This is life, Coraline."
---
"This is weird."
The stairway was warped as Wybie slowly climbed down to the basement. He couldn't put his finger on it, but the shadows and light seemed to be out of sync. It made the world look completely… wrong.
"Of course. This is outside of reality as you know it," the cat said, walking down the steps elegantly, seemingly unaffected by the altercation of lighting.
Wybie frowned, easing himself down off the stairs. He was now in the basement where Cat had said Other Wybie was. Shadows stretched out, and suddenly, the room seemed much larger and much smaller at the same time. Wybie squirmed, suddenly feeling extremely claustrophobic. There was a heavy scent in the air of dead roses.
"Johnny, he promised to marry me,
but I fear he's with some fair one and gone.
There's something bewails a man, I don't know what it is,
and I'm weary of lying alone."
Wybie pawed through the darkness, finding a metal bar and holding tight. He looked down at the cat questioningly. "Who's that? Sounds like a woman…"
"I have never heard her before." Cat frowned, bounding into the darkness. The world seemed to illuminate slowly around them.
"Well, Johnny he came there at the appointed hour.
He tapped on the window so low,
this fair maid arose and she hurried on her clothes
and she bid her true love welcome home."
There was a light tinkling of bells, and the mystery light allowed Wybie to vaguely make out rows of cells. He supposed that even mystical Other Mothers were into cliché dungeon scenes.
There was a dark thing deep in one of the cells, completely motionless. It seemed to absorb the light around it, emanating something much stronger. Wybie had a feeling that it could get out of the cell any damn time it wanted.
He was careful to give it a wide berth.
"She took him by the hand and she lay him down.
She felt he was as cold as the clay.
She said, My dearest dear, if I only had my wish,
this long night would never turn to day."
Wybie resisted the urge to hum along with the song. The smell of dead flowers was enough to give him a headache.
"Wybie?" he ventured softly. There was a soft scrabbling.
"Here!"
Wybie stumbled after the voice of the cat.
"Oh, crow up, crow up my little bird,
and don't crow before it is day,
and you'll keep shielding made of the glittering gold
and your door of silver so gay."
The boy could make out the image of a button-eyed version of himself behind the bars. They both recoiled from each other, odd expressions flashing over both faces. So this was the Other Wybie Coraline cared for so much.
Wybie didn't know why, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to meet his Other.
Other Wybie clutched the bars, his lips moving slightly, but he couldn't say anything.
"Hey, I'm Wybie. I'm from the Other… Other World," Wybie began awkwardly.
Other Wybie paused, then shook his head slowly. He held out his right arm, showing the stump where his right hand had been (Wybie was suddenly really glad that Coraline had warned him about that) and wearing an expression of total desperation.
"And where is your soft bed of down, my love?
And where is your white hall and sheet?
And where is the fair maid who watches over you
as you lie in your long, dreamless sleep?"
"What's wrong?"
"He is trying to ward his beloved from this place," a soft, whispery voice murmured. Other Wybie looked up sharply, blushing and shaking his head sharply. The whispery voice did not respond save for a small sigh that may or may not have been a laugh. "She is the next mistress."
"Oh, the sand is my soft bed of down, my love,
and the sea is my white hall and sheet.
The long, hungry worms they do feed off of me
as I lie every night in the deep."
"Who is that? The woman who's singing…"
"The Faery's Child. La Belle Dame Sans Merci."
Other Wybie seemed to be listening intently. He didn't know about this.
"Who are you?"
"One of the original servants. But you shouldn't concern yourself, child. You shouldn't concern yourself."
Other Wybie made frantic movements with his hands, grabbing Wybie's wrists very suddenly. Wybie's first instinct was to recoil from this button-eyed copy of himself, but he resisted the urge. His Other Self was trying to tell him something. Apparently, it wasn't working.
"Oh, when shall I see you my love? she cried
Oh, when shall I see you again?
When little fishes fly and the seas they do run dry
and the hard rocks do melt with the sun."
"Who's the Faery's Child? Why is she here?"
"It is the rules of the game." The voice seemed to hover very close to his ear briefly before receding deeper into the dungeon. "She is here to contribute to the reigning Beldam."
"You mean the Other Mother?"
"No longer. The Ice Queen. The Lady of Glass."
"What are you talking about?"
"When little fishes fly and the seas they do run dry
and the hard rocks do melt with the sun."
The song was over. A deathly silence fell over the room. Wybie felt strong, oddly hard arms wrap around him. There was the gentle rattle of chains and he fell into unconsciousness.
---
Dr. Windsor was humming that day. Coraline recognized the song. She frowned at the ceiling, struggling to figure out which one it was.
"You say that the Other Mother is almost finished with you?"
"Yeah. I'm kind of surprised. I would have thought that it would take longer, but it was all so natural."
"Do you think you like her?"
"Never. Not after the things she has done."
"But you have almost completed your apprenticeship."
"So?"
"That is almost consenting to be her replacement."
"I'll never be like her. Never."
Dr. Windsor was silent.
Coraline figured out the name of the song. Ghost Lover. She hummed softly, closing her eyes and letting visions of dolls and buttons dance through her head.