Adventures continue

Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and LAIKA studios.

Wybie Lowat was a thoroughly miserable boy, as only a boy that had been put into a magical cage that hanged off a branch of a giant oak tree could be.

And to think that it all had started so good! He was following Coraline, who led him to this magical place, with talking trees and flowers and even butterflies! ...There were no slugs per se, but Wybie could be an adaptable boy: he figured that next time he would bring Slugzilla with him, and they will have a good talk then.

Then Coraline turned around, and she was not Coraline at all, but some other girl, albeit still a pretty one. She smiled winsomely at Wybie and asked if he would be so kind as to come some way with her – there were some very important people that she would like him to meet.

By his nature, Wybie was shy, but he was also a boy, and when he was asked by a pretty girl to meet some very important people, he wouldn't say no, and said "yes" instead, and followed her off the path into the woods, where – among some rather dark and nasty-looking fir trees – their trip came to a sudden end.

"...There were two of them," he explained to his fellow prisoner. "One of them was human-sized – maybe around the height of Mrs. Jones, one of my neighbours, but with a skin the colour of really sickly green and hair like fire – and matching eyes. She was nasty, especially with those claws of hers – they were more like a grizzly bear's than a human's was! But the second – I don't know, she's just black, black as coal or something, I couldn't even make-out her eyes or features, except for those teeth, that just gleaned with this coppery green colour – it just wasn't natural!"

"They're not," Wybie's neighbour agreed, in a voice reminiscent of wind playing among the tree leaves and twigs. "The hags of the Unseelie court, Terraxia and Vyrdahlia, they and their sister are a blight on this land!"

"They have a sister? Great – what's she like?" Wybie muttered sarcastically, but his interlocutor took his question to be genuine.

"You wouldn't like her at all – Trillobia is her name, and though she is the weakest of the hags, she's also the one most hateful towards the children of the human race!"

"Oh, I don't know," Wybie muttered sceptically. "My friend Coraline – she had a run-in with someone who wanted to sew buttons onto her eyes or something!"

"Indeed? Can you tell me more?"

And Wybie – seeing that he had nothing else to do – did exactly that.

[Break]

The best thing about not knowing where to exactly to go, is that you are free to go anywhere, and that was what Coraline and Cat did: they just chose a random direction and walked in it.

To make matters more intense, there was no external direction signs in which to go: the sun, the moon and the stars still shone just as brightly overhead as they did when the pair started their trek, and still from the same positions in the sky.

"...Time really does stand still here," Coraline said after a while, during which she had busied herself by observing shadows of trees and shrubs and similar immobile objects (as opposed to birds and butterflies and dragonflies and other creatures whose shadows moved all over the place). "The shadows do not move, unless their sources move to begin with!"

"Of course," Cat replied casually. "That may seem neat to you at first, but then you just learn to accept in stride and adjust your hunting strategy accordingly."

"Hunting strategy? What do you hunt here – there aren't any rats."

"No, but butterflies work just as well and... are you listening to me?"

"No," Coraline guiltily admitted. "I think I hear somebody talking...and having a party."

"Really?" Cat was clearly sceptical. "You know, around here one can hear all sorts of sounds, maybe-"

"No, I'm sure," Coraline was adamant. "That is a party going on or something like it. Let's go and see – maybe Wybie's there."

"I doubt that," Cat muttered, but followed Coraline all the same.

[Break]

Of course, luck being what it was lately, Wybie wasn't at that party at all – which was held at a foot of a sweet-smelling honeysuckle bush at the roots of which bubbled a little spring and a brook. Around the brook sat several tiny, child-like creatures with slightly webbed fingers and toes, and skins the colour of water or ice. A raccoon the size of a horse was sitting next to them, too.

As soon as the tiny children saw Coraline, one of them jumped up and ran-up to her, before making a bow.

"Hello!" it said in a happy voice. "I am Splanxty the sprite and these are my friends and our cousins, the rime sprite. Oh, and this is our friend and neighbour, Coney."

"Hello," Coraline said, as she tried to her best to curtsy back. "I am Coraline, a human, and this my friend Cat. Sorry to impose, but have you seen our friend, Wybie Lovat? He's a human too."

"Sorry, but you're the first human we've ever met," Splanxty said sadly.

"He's travelling with a gahonga, we've heard," Cat suddenly spoke-up, as he suspiciously eyed the giant raccoon.

"He does, does he?" the sprite repeated in a more thoughtful voice. "Well, we're sorry, but we don't see too many gahongas – they are too weird for our taste."

"Well, I see," Coraline said sadly. "Well, sorry to impose, me and Cat we'll be off to search for our friend-"

"No, no, we insist – please, sit down and have a rest," the sprite literally jumped up and down in excitement. "A most splendiferous thing had occurred – Trillobia is gone!"

"Trillobia?" Coraline had heard that name, but she was not ready to reveal to the sprite and his friends the circumstances. "Who's she?"

"Don't you know, friend human? Trillobia was one of the covey of Unseelie hags, a most hateful creature, with skin like yellow mould and with hair like rotten sea-weed?"

"You don't say," Coraline said, who actually had seen a similar-coloured creature not too long (though who could tell in this land, forgotten by time?) ago. "And now she's dead, you say?"

"Oh yes!" the sprite said excitedly. "She and her fellow hags have gathered their covey in order to chastise somebody, but this time it didn't work, and Trillobia was slain instead!"

"And how do you know that?" Cat asked quietly, his eyes blue and intense.

"Why, friend, do you not know that Trillobia was truly the bane of all the waters that flow around here? With her forces of monstrous crabs, and many-headed hydras, and razoreel swarms, she would despoil and desecrate any and every source of water she were able to reach and grasp, and was our greatest enemy! Now – she is no more! Hooray for the hero who had slain the hag!"

"Yes, hooray," Coraline agreed, half-glumly and half-thoughtfully, as she remembered her past vision:

Three monstrous hags there has been the coal-black giantess, one with green skin, one with yellow. They were to chastise the Beldam with some sort of magic, but now it seems that one of them is dead instead. So, does that mean that the Beldam is alive instead? Moreover, if she is, is she...more dangerous or not?

Abruptly, Coraline got up. "I'm sorry," she said, slightly embarrassed. "But I've remembered that we are also looking for the Lady of Summer. Do you know where can find her?"

"Just follow the clouds," the giant raccoon spoke-up suddenly in a voice vaguely similar to Wybie's grandmother. "They'll lead you to her, you can be sure."

"Really? Well, thank you," Coraline said, managing to keep her shock under control. After all, this advice seemed to be very fit for this strange, chaotic place. "Our best wishes for your party!"

"Good luck to you to!"

[Break]

"So- so- so- where are we going?" the screech owl was flying in rings around the Beldam's head. "Where to, where to, where to?"

"We're looking for my daughter," the Beldam pursed her lips, partially from aggravation but partially in thought. "Since she and her familiar are looking for her friend, and her friend, I reckon, was in companionship with a gahonga, who foolishly thought to challenge my remaining aunts with a symbol of my office..."

"So? So-so?"

"My aunt Vyrdahlia's domain is in the fore, and more easily assessable than Terraxia's, so we'll be going there first, yes, and if we're lucky, we'll be there first, before my daughter does."

"Halt!"

"Or maybe not."

For few long moments, the Beldam eyed – with barely concealed distaste – her newest obstacle: another tree-nymph, similar to the guardian of the doorway, but dressed in some bark-like armour, and armed with a long spear.

It was probably that spear that made the case: the Beldam did not move into an attacking position, but one of neutrality. "Fairly met on this road," she began, but the spear-wielder interrupted her:

"No, we're not."

"Oh?"

"For a long time did I struggle to break-up the covey of the Unseelie, who blot our lands, and never could I even come close. Yet you manage to achieve that without a loss to yourself."

"I think," the Beldam said, "that I won't justify this with an answer at all."

"Why shouldn't I slay you, and thus break the covey's power for good? With just two hags, they won't be able to do, what three of them can!"

"Ah, but I am under protection of the guardian and the laws of your land," the Beldam suddenly replied, smiling. It was not a very nice smile, in fact it bordered on gloating. "And you cannot break them, not if I adhere to them to begin with."

"You may hide behind your cleverness and your words, changeling, but I will catch up to you yet, and once I do, your covey will never gather again."

"Consider me duly warned," the Beldam said, looking very unimpressed by this speech as she walked past the spear-wielder. "Guess we will meet again – see you!"

And she walked past her interlocutor, ignoring the latter's woodcarved eyes boring into her back, until the sylvan gloom of the borderlands of Vyrdahlia's domain swallowed her and the owl.

To be continued...