The Beldam's story: Coraline

The Other World

I think I've hit my head. Everything around me is a fluorescent white light. It's blinding and I have to squint my eyes to keep them open. I'm lying face up at the bottom of the well. William is standing over me. His perfect little facing blank, still cocked to the side like it was before he fell down the well. 

''William,'' I sit up and move to wrap him in my arms but he steps back so I just grasp the empty air. 

''Now that you're down here I don't think we have to pretend anymore, don't you?'' Willaim says, but his voice is deep. It's a man's voice. I move back away from what I thought was my son. 

''Who are you? Why do you look like my son?'' My voice remains calm but my head is swimming with a million different possibilities. My first conclusion is that I'm dead.

''Well, that's the thing. I am not one particular thing, I am not a person so I don't have a name. As for the body.'' He looks down at William's perfect little body.  ''I needed you to follow me so you would come down here and the body of your dead son did that well. It all worked very well, thank you.''

I don't know how to respond to that, so I don't. He doesn't mind so I take the chance to look around. But there is nothing to look at. No water, no home with the fresh wallpaper and the new house smell, no trees that are turning orange and flattering to the floor giving a dash of colour to the plain green grass, no bushes with rosebuds bursting from the leaves. It's all white. 

''Where are we?''

''The other world.'' He says. When he doesn't elaborate I ask,

''What is the other world and why did you bring me here?''

''Well, the thing is, this place needs to be inhabited. Otherwise, it wilts and dies and we can't have that otherwise I would die. So I brought you down there to keep this place full.'' His voice is flat and bored sounding. I stand up and look around again at the pristine white place. It's eerie and makes me uncomfortable. 

''Go on, make something.'' He tells me. He gestures the vast spread of land in front of me. Make something? I voice my confusion but he just tells me to think carefully about something clear in my mind. I close my eyes and think. I open them when I hear slow rhythmic clapping. My sewing machine is sitting on the ground in front of us. A sharp pain stabs my little finger. I look down to see that it has been sliced deeply across the length of my finger. 

''What happened?'' My feet carry me to the sewing machine and I run my fingers over all the familiar curves of the machine. It's definitely mine.

''You're tethered here now. You can't leave.'' I look behind me at the body of William who was behind me. It sends shivers down my spine to see him exactly how I remember him. The hair that as falling in his eyes. But he would push it out of his face whereas William would keep it there leaving Charles and me to do it. 

''Can't leave?'' 

''You have made something here. This place likes you.'' He grabs my hand and with the other gestures to the land of white. ''You will run this place as hundreds have done before you and hundreds will do after. You will lure unsuspecting children down here. Eat their flesh and use their life to build your personal kingdom. If you leave now you will die and condemn someone else to this life. You are mine, Belle.'' He runs his hand down my sliced finger and it stings. 

''Whenever you make something you will deteriorate until you are skin and bone. I have watched it time and time again.'' His voice was somewhat wistful. ''But if you want to make a trade then you can keep your body for a little longer.'' He runs his hand down my leg, I pull away. 

''Trade, what kind of trade?'' 

''First, I need you to make something else for me. Your cupboard full of sewing needles and buttons and string.'' He gestures next to the sewing machine and smiles at me. It's the same smile that William would give me when he had done something wrong. I could never say no to that face. Even though deep down I know that it isn't my son and that William has been dead for six months. I close my eyes and conjure up my cupboard in my mind. This takes a little more time. I have to see all of the little cracks in the legs and the shape of the drawer's fancy brass handles. By the time I open my eyes, there is a small puddle of blood collecting by my feet from a deep slash across my arm. In front of me now was my sewing machine, my stool and the cupboard. 

''Good, very good. you are better at this then I expected you would be.'' He walks over to the drawer and pulls out the button collection. 

''What's your favourite colour?''

''Uh, black.'' I walk up to him as he rifles around to try and find a match to the large black button in his hand. Buttons fall out of the basket and they clatter onto the floor. He mutters something about having to organise the buttons and then asks me to grab a needle and thread. I oblige, quickly going into the top drawer and grabbing my sharpest needle and black thread. 

''Do you have a high pain tolerance? I swear if you are another screamer then I will sew your mouth shut first.'' He finds the matching button and places the basket on the floor. 

''What do you mean sew my mouth first?'' I slowly begin to back away from him after he takes the needle out of my hand and holds it up, squinting one eye so his eye focuses on the point. 

''This place runs on the soul of a person primarily. If you don't offer a soul then it turns to the human body, letting it decay until there is nothing left. Your eyes are the window to the soul, so we must sacrifice them to build this world.'' He lifts up the buttons and needle with an evil glint in his eyes. 

''Why can't we just use your eyes?'' I say, my voice beginning to go up octaves in a panic. 

''I told you. I am not a person, so I don't have a soul.'' 

''You're a vermin, you know that?'' I spit the insult at him hoping that it will stop him. It does. But only for a brief second. 

''Vermin. I like that. You may now call me Vermin.'' Vermin approaches me slowly, his smile growing with each step he takes. I scream for help, but nobody comes. We are alone in this place. He jumps on my and pins me to the ground. The moment that he starts to rip my eyes out of my head, everything fades to black. 

I dream. I dream that I was in the big pink house with Charles and William. We had never gone to the beach so we were still together as a family. The three of us would run around in the garden once the sun had gone down and the moon had taken its place. William would get tired so we would take him to bed before Charles and I would go to bed and recite all the reasons we loved each other. A lullaby to go to sleep to. The next morning we would take William to a little school and I would go to our shop, making dresses while Charles ran everything else. Then everything would be repeated over and over again in a beautiful pattern. 

''Wake up, look what you've done.'' Vermin's voice floats into my perfect bubble of a dream. I open my eyes to see the moon. The moon? It wasn't there a second ago. I look over at Vermin and he smiles at me. 

''That's your eyes. Look beautiful, don't they? It's a constant reminder that you have eyes on everything here.'' I take in the moon for a minute, rubbing my face. When I get to my eyes, the rise of a button is there instead. The four small holes are tied by a thread that Vermin had somehow connected to my brain, allowing me to see. I look at him, a question on my lips. He sees it before I say it because he says.

''I've been doing it for hundreds of years. I have learned a few tricks. So,'' Vermin rubs his little hands together and gestures for me to stand up. 

''So what?'' I ask him.

''Now is the fun part, Beldam.''