Coraline 2: The Fate of the Beldam

Missing

When Coraline woke up in the morning, she went to start preparing breakfast. Mel was downstairs making coffee as Coraline started taking out ingredients for french toast. Coraline had just set up the pan when she heard Wybie coming down the stairs. "Hey Coraline, where are the kids?" He asked. Both Mel and Coraline froze. "They're not in their rooms?" Coraline asked. "Nope. I'll look outside." Wybie went to check the yard while Coraline started searching the house. Charlie was in the garden, and when he told Wybie that he hadn't seen the kids, that's when it got concerning for everyone.

"I'll call the police." Mel says, picking up the phone. It wasn't until Coraline went into the living room that she really started to panic. The door was wide open with the key in the lock. The brick wall was up, so no one could go after the kids. "No! Wybie! They went to the other world!" Coraline cried. Wybie came rushing in and looked concerned once he saw the open bricked up doorway and the key. "Let's go check the well!" He says, helping her up. They both raced to the well, but to their horror, the well had a brick wall too!.

"Oh no! Wybie, what do we do?" Coraline asks, crying into his shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll figure something out." As Wybie was comforting Coraline, he stared down at the mushrooms forming a fairy ring. "Have you ever wondered why there was a fairy ring here?" He asked. "Not really." "Don't you think it's kind of weird? If the beldam was a human, and you're related to her, then why would there be a fairy ring?" Both Coraline and Wybie were stumped. There's no way the beldam is a fairy if she was a human in the 1800s. "Is there another being in the other world?" Coraline thought for a moment. "Not really, unless I just never noticed."

Wybie and Coraline went back to the pink palace as fast as possible. Coraline pulled out the newspaper article that Phoenix showed her with Florence's picture, and read aloud: "Judy Smith and Ashland locals are currently working to find Florence and Jenayne Garner, a mother and daughter who mysteriously disappeared after entering a strangely small door in Judy Smith's home. Only a few years before, Florence and Judy's mother, Eunice Coleman disappeared after fetching water from the family home well. Many children had disappeared from Ashland between 1872 and 1960. Local authorities suspect foul play. Judy reported her niece's strange claims of fairies and a woman with button eyes from beyond the door before her final disappearance."

Coraline and Wybie froze. "So there are fairies in the other world." Wybie says. "I guess so, and maybe they did something to Florence." Coraline responded. "So then we're dealing with something darker." Coraline and Wybie went back into the pink palace, only to see a concerned Mel and Charlie. "Mom, Dad, what is it?" Mel held up 3 dolls, each one resembling Phoenix, Cypress and Archer. They were all frowning. Coraline had a flashback of the day she found the double sided doll of her parents when they went missing. "No! Not again!"

Suddenly, all the adults heard the kids calling for help. They all started frantically searching the house until Coraline saw them in the mirror. They were locked in a mysterious room, and had clearly been hurt. Archer had a cut on his cheek, as if he had been scratched with a blade. Cypress was holding her arm and Phoenix was holding them both protectively with a cut on his head, almost as if he had been hit on the head. The room they were in didn't look familiar to Coraline, but she knew they were in danger. "My babies! We've got to find a way into the other world. Now!" Coraline says, sounding confident and scared at the same time.

"Well, that article says kids from all over Ashland were disappearing, suggesting that there are portals all over the town." Wybie says. "But how will we know what the portal is?" "Well, what if they all kind of look like the tunnel? The well and tunnel in the door have similar walls." Coraline thought for a moment. "Sounds great! But if there are evil fairies, how do we go about defeating the fairies?" "It may sound silly, but maybe we should look for articles on fairy folklore before we go looking for a portal. We may get more information that we would have thought of." Wybie suggested. Coraline hesitated for a moment, but then agreed that he was right. "Alright. We'll do some quick research, but we need to hurry." "Let's go save our kids."

Coraline prepared a bag like she did when she rescued her parents from the beldam, then searched for evil fairies on a website. She found an article about what happens to evil fairies. "Evil fairies are corrupted by the wrong doings of people when they no longer see the good in humans. They become dark and their magic is no longer used for good, but instead is turned into dark magic, which can do serious harm. Evil fairies are often banished to other dimensions where their powers are either restricted, demolished or released. An evil fairy whose magic has been released can still do powerful harm, but only to beings in the dimension they're in. However, the banishment severely hurts the fairy's lifespan, causing the fairy to rapidly age like a human.

When a fairy dies in banishment, it remains as an evil spirit that will haunt the dimension it is in for all eternity. The only way to defeat an evil fairy spirit is to find its wand, and cast a foreign curse to banish it to Pekely Ohen, the land of the banished." Coraline printed the article and put it in her bag. "Wow, that was a lot. So do you think that there's a fairy spirit in the other world?" "It has to be. Maybe that's why the beldam is the way she is." Coraline picked up her bag, and started searching the house. "What are we looking for?" Wybie asked. "Weapons. If the beldam is a human, we can hold her off." Coraline picked up her father's cooking knife that had a cover and put it in her bag. Wybie put a hammer in the bag. Once the couple was satisfied with weapons, they left the house to find another portal.

Not too far away from Wybie's childhood home stood a stone archway with a covered hole. Wybie and Coraline looked at each other nervously, then opened it together. "It looks just like the well." Coraline says. "Let's give it a try." Wybie climbed in and started crawling through with Coraline not too far behind. On the other side, they wound up in the same spot in the other world. "Alright. It's showtime." Coraline says, looking at Wybie. They both started heading towards the other pink palace, not noticing a dark black cloud watching them.