The Lady of Summer
Disclaimer: some of the characters are mine. Coraline and friends belong to Neil Gaiman and to LAIKA studios.
The change was instantaneous: one moment the odd quintet plus Yassa was standing at a wooden well on a mountaintop in the middle of a sea of bird cherry shrubs, and the next they were standing, instead, in a garden full of apple-trees, fenced in by a wooden fence, of all things. Standing before them was a Lady, at whose feet a small, greyish, tabby cat was curled. The cat was quite nondescript, and on its own Coraline – at least – would say that their feline friend was much more impressive in appearance; but its' owner...
By now, Coraline was beginning to get used to that the inhabitants of the other world, those who were not animals to begin with, were not human, but more like humanoid versions of trees, shrubs, water wells and so on. However, the Lady of Summer – and it could not be anyone else but her – was very different from them: she glowed. She was as white, glowing, and fair as the now-bound Terraxia had been foul and dark, or perhaps even more so; she glowed as brightly as the summer sun and just as warmly.
Perhaps, Coraline mused quietly to herself, she is the summer sun just as a sprite is fresh flowing water or a dryad is a tree. This could be true here, after all.
Suddenly, Coraline became aware that her companions – her non-animal companions, that is – were standing stock-still and trembling from the sight. Carefully – for she was not sure herself that she was not trembling herself – Coraline took each of their hands into her own. She felt Wybie's meatier hand on her right, while Christabell's bigger and skinner hand grasped her left. All in all it felt rather weird and disturbing – Coraline wasn't used to being the courageous one; after all, all that she did was stand up to Christabell back when the latter still thought of herself as evil (albeit a somewhat decent and honourable evil, but evil nonetheless), and went into an unknown world to search for Wybie and confronted Christabell's remaining other aunts... Apparently, she was braver than she thought after all!
Of course, Christabell was quite brave herself, as her rescue and assistance of Coraline had proven, and Wybie... here Coraline's thoughts became derailed as the Lady of Summer began to speak.
[Break]
"Hello, children," the Lady of Summer spoke, and to Wybie her voice sounded like the wind in a field of wheat and cornflowers, in a garden of apple-trees (like the one in which they were already), and among the bulrushes that grew alongside a relatively deep, slow-moving river.
...All right, so Wybie's dreams were influenced a lot by Mark Twain's fiction, but he was just an 11-year-old (well, almost 12 years old in a couple of months) boy. What he was supposed to dream about? Coraline? Well, he did not. Really. He did not! Not in the least...
Here Wybie began to suspect that all of this not thinking about Coraline began to manifest in his neither regions and that he should shift his mental processes about something else – like about what the Lady of Summer was speaking about: something that he had missed as he had thought about Coraline, which he did not.
"...Christabell de Veux," the Lady was meanwhile speaking not to Wybie which was good, because right now the boy wasn't quite sure that he still felt adequate or ready to speak to her up close and personal. "You have kept true to yourself ever since you came here, and never forgot your true self, even though the temptation was great to do just so. You proved to your foes and friends, that human blood and human heart are greater than any fay magic, good or evil. For this, I restore the balance that was broken by the meddling of the hags – you get your life back! And worry not – the Seelie court does not cheat like our Unseelie counterparts do."
Wybie could not quite see what the Lady did to his new friend (or at least acquaintance - Christabell did not seem to be too friendly towards him, more like detached, really), but somehow he felt that the world did become a better place and that life was good. He almost smiled, but suddenly the Lady was before him, instead.
"Wybourne Lovat," the Lady's smile was shining and gentle at the same time. "Though you tend not to think too much or too correctly with your head, your heart is pure and your courage is strong. My friend the duchess-paragon had told me much of your brave and simple spirit."
Wybie turned red. Being of a more scientific bent than Coraline was, he was not too happy about being brave and simple – not really.
"And what is more, you have adhered to your lady friend" – she must have meant Coraline, though a lady friend... – "despite her ill-fortune at the hags' hands, and for that the Seelie court salutes you! Wybie Lovat, you're welcome at this court and its domain for evermore!"
Wybie tried to thank the Lady, but his throat refused to work beyond some incoherent sounds in the back of it. Fortunately, the glowing woman was now in front of Coraline, thus saving Wybie from humiliating himself even more so than how he was already.
"Coraline Jones," the Lady meanwhile was saying. "In all honesty, your friends speak true: your intelligence is quick and your heart is pure, even if you don't use them at the same time or at the right time at all. You have proven without a doubt that you are human no matter what, and for that, human you'll be!"
Wybie did not hear Coraline's reply, but he was sure that his newest friend made a squeak of her own as well.
"And now," the Lady continued, just as warmly and gently, just a bit more... sadly? "And now it is time for you to go home, this quest of yours has come to an end!"
With those words, the Lady of Summer burst into a wall of almost blinding sunlight, and Wybie Lovat knew nothing more for a while.
[Break]
The tick-tock of the clock woke Coraline Jones from her sleeping position – lying on her stomach, her nose buried deep in a pillow. "Ow," she groaned, as she tried to massage the kinks out of her neck, which has grown stiff from being stuck in one position for too long. "That was some... crazy... dream..."
Coraline drawled off. Was it all a dream? Her adventures in the other world, her bridge mending with Christabell, her growing a tail (okay, that could be a dream, no problem), the monstrous hags – her potential "other grand-aunts"? Was it all a dream or-
Slowly, Coraline cast her gaze at the corner where the small door to the other world (or at least a part of it) was. It was gone, and that shocked Coraline even more so than anything else did. Could it be that all of her adventures were just a series of dreams created by her boredom due to the absence of her parents because of some dumb dissertation? If so, was Wybie and Cat also a dream-
A soft but stern "Meow" shook Coraline out of her tearful shock – Cat, at least, was clearly not a dream, and was currently gazing at her with his wise blue eyes. Then... it turned around and began to trot out of Coraline's room, clearly hinting that the girl should follow it.
Having nothing to do, and secretly beginning to hope that there was more to her dreams than just dreams, Coraline followed her feline friend.
And ran smack into another person.
"Ooof!"
"Coraline, watch where you are going – or are you still sleepy?"
The voice was female and young, and so was the speaker – just a few years older than Coraline herself, in fact: 14 or 15 years of age. In addition – strangely familiar, as Coraline stepped back and looked at her.
The girl was thin, with pale skin and black hair and piercing green eyes, like some bird's. She was dressed in black pants and grey sweater, and Wybie was standing behind her, actually looking sleepy, while Coraline did not.
"Geraldine, sis," he grunted, "what happened?"
"Geraldine?" Coraline repeated, looking at the other girl (Wybie's sister?!) and finding several similarities to the former Beldam, Christabell, mainly in the colour of skin and hair and in the thin body. The color scheme of clothing too was similar enough, but... Wybie's sister?!
"Coraline, are you all right?" Geraldine meanwhile was speaking once again, and her voice too was somewhat similar to Christabell's, save for age difference.
"Oh sis, cut it out – you're only nervous because you're afraid that if something goes wrong, the Joneses won't let you baby-sit ever again."
"Hey, I am eleven! I don't need to be babysat!" Coraline felt righteous indignation suppress even her current confusion.
"Yeah! And neither do I!" Wybie eagerly chimed in.
"Children!" Geraldine began to speak in a huff of teenagers when they try to be grown-up. "Behave yourselves! Coraline, your father called and said that they're going to be back soon."
"How soon? It is only... eleven thirty? I feel asleep-"
"You and squirt here fell asleep shortly after supper, which was around nine," Geraldine shrugged noncommittally, "but hey, you had a busy day running all around the flat and what not with that feline of ours."
"Hey!"
"Anyways, I also dozed off, and only your dad's phone call caused me to wake-up-"
And here Geraldine was interrupted by the sound of the key unlocking the flat's front door.
[Break]
As the Joneses entered the apartment, Coraline and the Lovats stood at attention, ready to react if the adults were to be in a funny mood – which they were. However, this mood manifested in Mrs. Jones in a strange way – she just walked across the flat and locked herself in the parents' bedroom. Mr. Jones was left on his own to explain the situation to the kids, which he did in his usual way – helplessly.
"Look, um, kids," he told his daughter's guests, "I, uh-"
"We're leaving," Geraldine said quickly, "come on, squirt!"
"Right – see you tomorrow, Jonesy, I mean – Coraline, I mean-"
"Let's go squirt," Geraldine grabbed her brother by ear and pulled him out of the Joneses flat. However, as she turned around to close the door and wish Coraline a good night, she winked. In a very knowing, pointed and suggestive way.
Then she and Wybie were gone, walking to their grandmother's place instead.
[Break]
"Coraline?" Mr. Jones inquiring voice brought the girl back to reality as she slowly digested the fact that dreams have a grain of truth and that Christabell did live on. "Can we talk?"
"Yes, dad. Is it about mom? Something wrong about your dissertation?"
"No, Coraline, it's not that. You see, uh, your mother, she's, um, pregnant – by, well, me. You are going to be a big sister now! Isn't it great?"
And Coraline, a girl who had faced off many challenges and monstrous witches, said – in a rather shaky, scared voice – "Narf?" and promptly fainted dead away.
The End.