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The Trade	By : sandyl666 Category: +1 through F > Coraline Views: 11933 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: Coraline book-verse is owned by Neil Gaiman and part of movie-verse is owned by Henry Selick, I own nothing. I make nothing whatsoever by writing and posting this on.

Chapter List
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Disclaimer: Coraline is not mine, its Neil Gaiman's and Henry Selick. I don't know why I constantly repeat this and have to say something different each time.
A/N: I never actually planned to have all the chapter have 're' names. I just started the first chapter out like that and it just all seemed so appropriate that I got out my dictionary to name this chapter and keep up the pattern. I guess I'll just keep going until I hit a dead end.
Chapter 3: Redundant

The pad of the Cat's footsteps beside her was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. And in her current position, she needed all the comfort she could get.
"Ah, here we are," The Other Mother said and opened a door, holding it open and stepping aside to let Coraline enter first. Coraline scrutinised the Other Mother carefully.
"After you," she said, gesturing to the door. The Other Mother chuckled darkly.
"Afraid I'll stab you in the back, Coraline?" she teased.
"Yes," Coraline answered seriously.
"Oh, trust me, my dear, if I wanted to be rid of you, it won't be so quick and easy," the Other Mother said.
Coraline couldn't help twitching at the Other Mother's words. The Other Mother laughed as she caught sight of the movement.
"It was a joke. You know I love you,"
"Funny way of showing it," Coraline muttered. The Other Mother sighed and entered the room. Coraline inhaled deeply and followed, only to let out a squeal as she dropped downwards. She caught hold of something sticky and rope-like at the edge of the room and held onto it.
"Let go, Coraline," the Other Mother urged kindly from somewhere below the sixteen year old. Coraline snorted at that.
"And fall to my death? Please," She said, grunting as she tried to hoist herself up to actual land.
"Don't exaggerate. Come now. We don't have all day. You do want to win this game, don't you?"
Coraline's struggling motions stilled as the Other Mother's words swirled around her head. She sighed. Here goes nothing. She thought and let go of the sticky rope.
She screamed as she was falling. It felt like hours as she dropped, but it must have been really only seconds. She landed squarely in a pair of arms, and gasped from the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She held onto the person who'd caught her tightly. In that moment, it didn't matter to her that that person was the Beldam, the person who had nearly sewn buttons into her eyes and kept three souls captive as she fed on them. At that moment, she was her saviour. That is, until her saviour opened her mouth.
"It's alright now, honey," The Other Mother giggled at Coraline's panicked relief.
Coraline grimaced and struggled, her earlier gratitude forgotten. "Let me go!"
The Other Mother sighed and let the girl down. Coraline placed her feet squarely on the ground and crossed her arms tightly. She felt annoyed at herself for showing such weakness in front of her enemy.
Trying to look at anything but the teasing look on the Other Mother's face, she tried to scope her surroundings. She seemed to be in a circular room. There were no doors except for the one she came through - which was about ten feet in the air. The room had three windows, all of which, for some reason, was looking out at the moon. She looked back up at the sticky ropes she had been holding onto. What were those ropes for? She frowned at the answer to her question - it was the remnants of a broken web.
Coraline had a bad feeling about what was to come.
"Yes, you're right," The Other Mother said, sensing the possibilities running through Coraline's intelligent mind.
Coraline didn't respond, focusing instead on the remaining strands of silky, sticky web above her. How am I going to get out of this one? She wondered.
"You're going to have to reproduce my beautiful web." The Other Mother said with a happy giggle.
Coraline stared at the Other Mother, wondering if this was another of her cruel jokes. The Other Mother merely smiled at her indulgently, her eyes running over Coraline's skimpily clad formed. Coraline pulled her bathrobe further closed. The Other Mother's gaze made Coraline feel more bare than she actually was.
Trying to avoid the spider's roving gaze, she looked back up at what was left of the previous web.
"How?" she asked.
"Like this," the Other Mother said, and laid a metal finger on Coraline's shoulder. Coraline screamed at the sharp, chilling feel. The Other Mother chuckled as Coraline looked at the spider-like form fearfully, her mind running back to their last encounter.
The Other Mother - No, the Beldam, leaped up and her long, metallic legs grabbed hold of one of the broken strands. Then, producing a white string from her mouth, began to rope what was left of the web together. Coraline watched in surprise. The intricate way the Beldam wielded the web strands was a surprise for Coraline. Never once did she think that the evil creature had to ability to produce something so beautiful. Then again, she should have know. After all, the Beldam had once created the Fantastic Garden she had seen right? Even if it was to fool her, she had to admit that it was a piece of beauty and genius.
The Beldam finished stringing together one round of the web, then leaped back down and smirked at the obviously admiring look on Coraline's face. Coraline quickly schooled her features back into one of apathy. The Beldam snickered quietly.
"Your turn, darling," The Beldam indicated to the web.
"I'm not a spider. I can't make webs," Coraline pointed out.
"Well, of course," The Beldam shot out piles of web into a corner of the dimly lit room. "I did say I would provide the materials, right?"
Coraline pursed her lips at the task before her, then moved to take some of the web. She was surprised at the silky feel of them. They would make some amazing fabric. She heard another chuckle behind her, and glared at the Beldam's amused look.
"Are you just going to stand there?" Coraline snapped.
"Of course. I want to watch you do this,"
Coraline didn't say anything more as she moved to recreate the web. She strung a base at the bottom of the room. She couldn't make one as high as the Beldam could, after all. But all she had to do was make one stupid web, right?
The Beldam had made it look so easy. Her stringing was effortless. Coraline grunted and hissed in frustration as she tried to force the silky fibres together. It was so difficult to make it stay. It was sticky, sure, but silky at the same time. A difficult combination to work with. The Beldam watched her with gleeful eyes.
Coraline worked steadily, but carefully. She didn't want to screw this up. When she finished attaching the last strand, the Beldam started clapping.
"Well done, Coraline," she said happily, the clashing of her metallic hands sounding harsh in the small room. Coraline froze and looked at the Beldam suspiciously. The Beldam wouldn't look so happy if she really thought that Coraline did a good job. What did she do wrong?
"I won. Now give me the key," Coraline said, wiping off a drop of sweat from her forehead and holding out an open palm.
"Ah-ah-ah," The Beldam tutted. "But you didn't do as I asked."
Coraline stared at the Beldam in disbelief. She'd recreated that dumb web, hadn't she? What was the evil monster going on about? Her spine stiffened as she considered the possibility.
"No," she whispered.
"But yes. I told you to 'reproduce my beautiful web'. I meant to reproduce that one," she pointed up at the semi-destroyed web.
Coraline let out a wail of desperation and frustration. Her bathrobe and nightie was dripping with sweat. She'd done all that - for nothing?
"That's not fair!" she screamed at the Beldam.
"But it is,"
"You didn't say to do that!"
"You didn't ask, love,"
Coraline bit her lip savagely to prevent herself from breaking down and crying.
"Fine," she forced through gritted teeth. "Make me more web strands and I'll re-do it,"
"Ah, you forgot the magic word,"
Coraline glared heatedly, pointedly. "Please,"
The Beldam smiled regrettably. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I've run out. You're going to have to undo the ones you've used,"
Coraline gaped at the unfair change of events in the game. Oh, why hadn't she paid more attention? She was regarded as one of the top students in school, a true straight A student. She could even beat Wybie. And yet she'd missed all of these holes, all these exceptions which the Beldam was now using to her advantage.
"That'll take ages!" Coraline protested childishly, reverting to her eleven year old self in the light of her panic.
"Then you'd better start. You're running out of time," The Beldam stared pointedly out a window. Coraline turned her head slowly towards the moon, dreading what she was going to see. She gasped.
"It hasn't been that long!" Coraline protested. "How can the button be covering two-thirds of the moon?"
"But we agreed that the game ends when the button covers the moon. Never once did you say anything about how long it has to take for the button to cover the moon."
Coraline looked, dismayed, at the Beldam. A million things ran through her head.
She was going to lose.
The Beldam was going to get her revenge.
Why did she agree on using her parents and friends as spoils of the bet?
"Tick tock, Coraline. Time's not on your side, you know," The Beldam chuckled deeply.
Coraline turned away, an angry tear slipping out of the corner of her eye. She was Coraline. She would not admit defeat to the evil witch. She tugged at the strands forcefully, trying to pry them apart.
No, she would not give up. Not when there was so much at stake.
She didn't give up, much to the surprise of the Beldam. Even with the odds stacked against her, she still powered on, giving it her all. The Beldam watched on in amusement as the sixteen year old unbound the beautiful web she'd made. A shame, really. It was made quite well.
Her flimsy night-dress was drenched in sweat, making it more transparent. Coraline's unbound bosom shimmered with her sweat in the most minimal of moonlight. She really had grown in the years they'd been separated. The Beldam resisted the urge to lick her lips as the nightdress of the girl before her hitched up slightly on one of the web strands, exposing the pale, smooth skin of her thigh.
The powerful creature was enjoying this. Oh yes, she was enjoying it very much.
Coraline, on the other hand, really wasn't. She'd nearly finished unbinding all the threads. Now she had another problem - how was she going to get up there?
The Beldam grinned at the apparent dilemma going on in Coraline's head. Coraline tried to ignore it the goading, bragging look on the Beldam's face.
She peered up at the base of the web above her and was struck by a sudden, crazy idea. Grabbing hold of one of the free web ropes, she flung it upwards and over one of the strands of the web the Beldam had re-created to re-form the web. It hiked over the other strand, and fell back downwards on the other side of the string, and back down to Coraline. Coraline grinned, holding the two strands of rope in her hand. She tugged on it, testing it. It was secure, like a thread in the eye of a needle. Then she began climbing up it. She braved a glance at the Beldam. The Beldam's eyes were narrowed dangerously at the base of the web above her, seeming to regret her earlier demonstration. Coraline smiled to herself victoriously.
The Beldam tried to calm herself down. No matter, there was only a fifth of the moon left to be covered. There was no way Coraline could complete the web. Revenge would be hers.
Whether Coraline liked it or not.
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The Trade