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The Trade	By : sandyl666 Category: +1 through F > Coraline Views: 11932 -:- 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 and it's characters and original plot, etc, belong to Neil Gaiman, and Henry Selick. As usual, I don't own anything. It breaks my heart.
A/N: Lemons start at Chapter 5. There's a M-rated version of this, with a lot less explicit content on fanfiction/./net, if you prefer that.

Chapter 1: Revival

It was an ordinary night. A full moon hung heavily in the night, and the stars were only partially obscured by the dark tufts of clouds that floated on by.
Three small figures walked on by, too proud to admit how frightened they were to be out of their comfy beds and walking through a forest at this time of night. Their minuscule silhouettes indicated that they were mere children, whose ages were still in single digits, and whose bodies had a fair amount of growing left to do.
They continued walking on to a wooden trapdoor embedded in the ground. With a grunt of effort, the three kids pushed the cover back, opening the well. One dropped a rock into the well. It was a long time before he heard the desired splash of the rock hitting water.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" one of the kids asked, his eyes darting back and forth nervously.
"Of course!" said the other kid, snorting with more confidence than he felt. "We didn't come all this way for nothing,"
"Yeah, but..." the first one whined, then trailed off into silence when he found that no one was listening to him.
One of the boys lowered a rope with a hook attached to the end into the well.
"What if we really catch her? What if she exists?" asked the frightened boy.
"That's what we want to happen, stupid!" The third voice snapped angrily. "Why do you think we made this?" He gestured to the rope-hook contraption he held.
"But she's a ghost! We can't fight ghosts," The first voice continued whining. The other two paid him no notice.
Finally the rope snagged onto something. The boys exclaimed in shock. The frightened boy squeaked, and took a surprised step back.
"Pull it up! Come on, help us, Ernie!" they beckoned to the small, fearful boy. Ernie took a hesitant step towards them before helping his friends pull the rope back up.
They stared in disappointment at the dripping bag-like thing they had fished up.
"What is it?" Ernie whispered to his friends. The other two shrugged.
The biggest of the boys poked the bag with a stick. It didn't respond. Finally, summoning what courage he had, he knelt beside it and examined it.
"A key's tying it closed," he told his friends.
"John, come back," Ernie said quietly, fearfully. The scared, nervous feeling in his chest had grown bigger. Something bad was going to happen, he knew it.
"Stop being such a girl, Ernie," the other boy scoffed, bending down beside John to untie the string holding the cloth together. Ernie backed away a bit more.
The cloth came undone, unwrapping like a rose opening it's petals. Inside it were little metal-like bits, sharp and dangerous.
"What the hell? It's nothing," John said, disappointed. Ernie said nothing but continued backing away. His unease had only escalated into full-blown fear. John picked up one of the sharp needle-like items, playing with it the way only a kid could.
Zane held the key up, squinting at the old, black thing in the moonlight. He continued staring at it, mesmerised. He was shocked out of his daze when John exclaimed suddenly.
"Ouch!" he exclaimed, dropping the metal thing as he nursed his injured finger. It landed back onto the cloth with a dull clang. Droplets of blood fell from his finger, landing on the thin blade. Then the most peculiar thing happened. The metallic item came to life, the many pieces joining back together like magnets. It started moving, eerily similar to the way a spider did. John screamed in surprise. Zane gaped, his hand fisted around the little black key. Ernie turned around and bolted, unable to ignore his instinct to run any longer.
As he left the forest, the screams of his friends got louder and louder, until it cut off abruptly.
Ernie continued running, tears of fear streaming down his face.
He never saw his friends ever again.
"Coraline! Up! You'll be late for school!" Mel shouted. Coraline groaned as she turned in her bed.
"School," she grumbled. "The most boring place in the world. I thought our home in the holidays was boring - so wrong!" she ranted to herself as she wrapped her warm dressing gown around herself, and put on a pair of fuzzy slippers. She shivered as the cold of the floor caressed her feet, despite the layer of fuzziness between her bare feet and the floor. "Stupid weather,"
She shuffled down the stairs into the kitchen, the rather disturbing smell of her father's cooking invading her nostrils.
"Leftovers again?" Coraline groaned.
"Sorry, hon. I didn't have time to go grocery shopping," her mother said sympathetically. Her guilty tone conveyed to Coraline the sincerity of her apology, to make up for the fact that she was too busy to even look up at her daughter.
Coraline grumbled unhappily under her breath for a second, then stopped abruptly. It's still better than having buttons for eyes. She reminded herself.
After having suppressed any memories of breakfast (due to the sheer trauma) she went up to her room to get ready for school.
She looked at the full-length glass that reflected her appearance. It looked the same as it always did. Blue hair that reached slightly above her waist, curling in at the edges. Drab, grey school uniform that was far too big for her, despite having been bought more than five years ago. Tall far too thin body with the most minimal of curves. She sighed audibly at her reflection. I even look boring. She thought.
She turned away quickly as if disgusted by her appearance, hiking her bag over her right shoulder as she left the room.
School.
A place where hierarchy was primary. All that fuss about equality in schools? Wrong. The teachers themselves assert their power at every turn, ensuring that their students know that they're in control.
And getting paid for it.
Then of course, there's the domineering kids. They tended to be referred to as the 'popular' ones. The trend-setters, commonly blond, deeply involved in a sporting club. Which wasn't always true, of course, but most of the time was.
The middle was of course, the average. People like Coraline. Boring, never stood out. One of them could go missing for eternity and yet never be noticed.
Then there was the very bottom. The bullied. They weren't actually nerds, or geeks. Just really unlucky, vulnerable individuals. People picked at random by the populars as entertainment.
Much like the Beldam picks her victims, really.
"Coraline!" A petite figure bounded up to the blue-haired teen, attacking her the moment she stepped out of the car.
"Hey, Kate," Coraline greeted her friend, taking into stride the routine tackle she received from her friend. Kate giggled in reply.
"Have a good day, sweetie," Her dad called from the car. Coraline waved to him as he drove off.
"So, guess what?" Kate asked, clinging onto her blue-haired friend's arm affectionately.
"Uh. What?" Coraline was still a little twitchy at the contact but this was Kate. Her first girl friend here.
"Wybie and I are going to The Fog on Friday!" Kate said cheerily, giggling with happiness.
Coraline's first instinct was to congratulate her friend, but then she registered the destination. "The Fog? Wybie?" She just managed to stop the snort of derision as it travelled up her nose.
"Yes," Kate looked a little embarrassed. She, too, had her own qualms about how it would to turn out. Her slouching, tousled-haired four month-boyfriend and the fanciest restaurant for miles? Not a good combination.
"Um, well, have a nice time, I guess," Coraline said unsurely. Kate, despite being conflicted, seemed enthusiastic about the whole ordeal. On the other hand, the worrying mix of Wybie and a fancy restaurant had the potential to be the disaster of the century, on the same scale as the nine-eleven accident and World War Two. And having your parents kidnapped by the Beldam. Coraline thought to herself quietly
Just as they entered the school hallway, a brown-skinned, masked figure skidded across their path. The two girls jumped back in shock. The rider on a fold-up scooter, recognising the faces of his friends, backtracked and bowed low before them. Coraline rolled her eyes as Kate giggled. He held out a gloved, open palm and Kate placed her fair hand into his. He lifted his mask and kissed her knuckles lightly. More flattered giggles erupted from the brunette.
Coraline coughed awkwardly. "I'll just be, uh, going..." She muttered. But the two lovebirds didn't seem to notice her gradual absence as she slipped off. Most people would be offended at their ignorant, preferential behaviour, but Coraline was just glad they had finally gathered the courage to court each other. Her eyes were starting to get weary of all the eye rolling she was doing as they took their time making googly-eyes at each other. Not that she was rolling her eyes in exasperation any less. She'd even taken to face-palming, which merely worked to make her forehead darken in shades of pink and red.
The thin, almost gangly blunette rounded a corner and bumped right into the school principal, his eyes narrowed dangerously as he scanned his surroundings for someone.
"Jones!" He yelled at an unnecessarily loud volume. Coraline winced as little drops of spit rained on her. "Where's Lovat!?"
Coraline looked into a glass separating the hall from the class further up the hall; in it lay the reflection of her best friends as they talked to each other, stealing little glances and intimate touches. Caught up in his infatuation, Wybie had failed to fold up his scooter and put it away. His mask and gloves were a normal - geeky - personalisation of the school uniform, though he should have put them away too or suffer the wrath of the principal. "I saw him go that way," she said, pointing to a hallway further down that the principal had missed.
"I see. Get to class, Jones!" he shouted and then stomped off in the direction of the hallway she had indicated. She sighed in relief. You owe me one, Wybie. She thought in annoyance, wiping her face with a handkerchief and taking extra care to rub away any traces of saliva from her favourite dragonfly hairclip. Her mother had bought her many other hair ornaments to keep her bangs out of her eyes but she always found some kind of reason to dislike them - too big, too small, too dull, too colourful...
She shouldered her bag and walked off in the direction of the class, smiling slightly as she caught sight of the reflection of her best friends in one of the glass panes, holding hands. She hurried off to her classroom, intent on being early enough to provide a viable excuse to the teacher as to the absence of two of the most important people in her life.
Coraline strolled quietly, enjoying the peace and quiet of the surrounding forest as she walked the remaining distance to her home. The bus never came into this area - it was far too untamed and unruly with vegetation.
"Hey, Mr Bobinsky," Coraline said cheerfully. After a whole day of listening to teachers blab information she was sure she would never use in real life, the old, eccentric man was a comforting sight. He was doing squats on the small roof that covered the porch, his protruding torso sticking out like a gut inflated with alcohol. But Coraline knew just how fit Mr Bobinsky was, if the constant squats and stick-like limbs were any indication.
"Caroline!" Despite years and years of continuous correcting, her neighbours - that's right, neighbours. Plural. - continued to address her incorrectly. It bothered her for the first few years or so but eventually she'd come to terms with her fate of forever having a name that would be gravely misunderstood. "The mice want me to give you a message!"
"A message?" Coraline echoed, her eyebrows lifting. The mice didn't give her 'messages' often. The last time they did was about a year or two ago when Coraline had been awakened during the night by a furious pounding on the minuscule door located in the sitting room. The Beldam held grudges for a long, long time. Never once did her parents acknowledge such noises, though. It was as if the noise was meant for her and her alone. She shivered at that thought.
"Yes. I did not get it any more than I understood the last message. Why did they say that nothing will happen as long as little door remains locked? Nevertheless, they told me to tell you to beware." Coraline frowned at that statement. A fearful chill ran up and down her spine, tingling like the feel of cold, metal fingers dancing over her body, poised to sink their sharp ends into her delicate skin. "They say that darkness approaches you," Mr Bobinsky went on. He shrugged. "But as always the mice get things wrong. I think they are getting senile in their old age," Then he pulled himself up onto the balcony, leaping up and disappearing into his house, leaving a fearful Coraline on the first steps of the house.
She shook her head, trying to snap herself out of her daze. "Nothing will happen as long as the door remains locked. Nothing will happen as long as the door remains locked," she chanted to herself like it was a protective mantra. She collected the mail, flipping through them as she tried to still her shaking hands. She took a deep breath and entered her flat.
"How was school?" Her mother asked without looking up from her laptop screen. The irritating clicking of her fingers dancing about the keyboard failing to aggravate Coraline's nerves for once. She was far too numb with fear for that.
"Boring," she answered, trying to keep her tone even. Not that it mattered. Her mother never bothered to listen to the answer. She asked the question out of habit and duty rather than out of concern. Coraline knew her mother loved her - but the older woman had trouble expressing her affection. It was times like these that Coraline almost wished she was like the other mother. Almost.
Coraline dropped the mail onto the counter and sorted it out. She stared curiously at the parcel, temporarily forgetting her worries. It was addressed to her and contained something squishy. Made of cloth, perhaps? She frowned. The only other item made out to her was a thin letter with the logo of a bank stamped on it - a bank statement for that ridiculous account her mother told her to open when she was twelve.
She took both items, as well as her bag, up to her room, trudging heavily up the stairs. Flopping onto her bed, she tossed the letter aside and focused on the package. She had a sneaking suspicion as to what it was. The sixteen year old held her sharp pocket knife at the ready. A black plastic bag was at her side, placed in close proximity should she need it.
Taking a deep breath, she glared at the package with renewed fire. How dare the Beldam try to mess with her life again? Feeling courage well-up at the bottom of her stomach, she lifted the parcel in her hands.
Slowly, she unwrapped the parcel and the first thing she saw were the blue strands. Then the dragonfly clip, and heard the first swishes of the yellow raincoat rubbing against the paper bag. She lifted the doll out and held her knife pointed at the button eyes of the ragdoll.
"I will never let you sew buttons into my eyes!" she shouted at the doll, then proceeded to cut off both the buttons of the doll, effectively blinding it. Quickly, she reached for the plastic bag and threw the buttons in it, followed by the doll. She stomped to the fireplace in the sitting room and emptied the contents of the bag into it, glaring at the fire. The fire-heated buttons glowed red as the doll's eyes glared back, having landed perfectly on the dolls face but in the wrong angle and position - causing the doll's face to seem more distorted than ever.
"I won't lose to you, Beldam," Coraline spat at the fire.
You know I love you. A voice echoed from the little door in the sitting room. Coraline jumped at the sudden, chilling presence. It was followed by a feminine cackle that deepened until it became almost like a man's. The hollow, humourless laugh produced a feeling off utter, bone-chilling fear in Coraline as she bolted out the door of the sitting room, the red eyes of the doll watching her as it melted in the face of the younger Coraline.
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The Trade