CHAPTER 5
A HUMAN AND A VISIONARY
ONE MONTH LATER
CORALINE became a pro at sneaking out of the bedroom window to meet up with her secret friend. It was a daunting task at first: Coraline lived on the second floor of her large house, and there was no way to just jump down from her window without actually killing herself in the process. Outside her window was a ledge. To the right of that, a vine-covered ladder was nailed in place. Jacob once thought it made the house look more "homey." Coraline wondered if – had her parents stayed together – he ever thought his daughter would use this weak ladder to escape her room in the dead of night. Probably not.
She began to realize that Michael had the ability to win over anyone he met. He sometimes visited Coraline's board game club when he knew Miriam would be out of the house and got along well with her friends. Even Greg ended up slightly warming up to him. Coraline also made it her duty to show him some of the most important things to a teenager's experience. It seemed that Miriam deprived him of that, seeing as all he had on him for a cell phone was a silver Motorola flip phone from 2005. He didn't even know what Netflix was until Coraline asked him if he watched Stranger Things.
The one person that he had yet to win over was Coraline's own mother. She guessed that was a given since Francesca Avery had yet to speak to him, and Coraline wasn't going to let that happen anytime soon. Despite her frequent absence from the big, brick home, Francesca was smart – smarter than her daughter apparently thought. She knew what was going on from the tiny cracks Coraline left in her window, and noticing that their Netflix membership now had another account attached to it named, Beast Head.
Coraline wasn't as slick as she thought she was.
On a rainy, Sunday afternoon, Francesca walked into her daughter's room while putting on her favorite gold hoops. Jacob Avery had got them for her for their three-month anniversary years ago. Coraline was curled up on her bed, flipping through the never-ending TV guide with her remote that needed new batteries badly. Francesca knocked on her daughter's open bedroom door, leaning against it in her work heels.
Coraline looked over, taking in her mother's work uniform. She hardly saw her in anything else nowadays. "I thought you weren't working today."
"The hotel asked me to come in," Francesca replied. "Someone called out. Can't say no to some extra money on my paycheck."
The daughter snorted, but decided not to respond. She hit the remote against her hand a couple times and hoped that would stop the lagging. It didn't.
Francesca took a step inside, crossing her arms over her chest. "What are doing today while I'm gone?"
"I don't know," Coraline shrugged. "I'll probably do some homework."
The mother's eyes narrowed. "Really?" She snarled, causing Coraline to look over. "Or are you going to sneak out of your window to visit the Satanist house down the street?"
Coraline's eyes formed into slits. Francesca put her hands on her hips, glaring down at her daughter. They truly were two of a kind sometimes.
"You don't know anything," Coraline scoffed.
"I so do, Coraline Rose!" The mother screamed, causing her daughter to cringe at hearing her full name. "Do you think I'm an idiot?! I know your favorite thing to do now is defying me, and I specifically asked you to stay away from those people. What – have those new meds done this to you? Do we need to get you another medication?"
Coraline hit her bed sheets with her hands, releasing an annoyed groan. "You let me go over there weeks ago to do your dirty work so they wouldn't 'kill us.' The boy over there needed a friend – a social life. I'm helping him."
"Do you just ..." She let her hands drop to her sides. The fabric of her uniform clung to her small frame in such a delicate way, but ruffled whenever Francesca moved. "Do you get your jollies out of disobeying me?"
"No!" Coraline stood up from her bed and walked towards her mother. Crossing her arms over her chest, she replied, "I don't understand why you're so upset about these people. You stopped going to church years ago!"
Francesca suddenly pressed a finger to her daughter's lips. "Shush!" She squealed. "None of the other housewives knew that!"
Coraline whacked the finger away. Francesca's hands formed into fists, but they released after a short moment. "God, I – if your father was here –"
"HE'S NOT!"
Coraline's outburst came out before she could stop herself. Her scream was loud – too loud. Michael could probably hear it from his home. Coraline lowered her voice, but the malice never left her tone: "He's not here, mom. He left. And he wouldn't do anything otherwise. At least dad used to be open-minded enough to let new people in."
"Open-minded? Ha! He liked women who opened their –" Francesca stopped. She put up her hands and shook her head. Coraline froze in place. "Forget it. Go off with the Satanist kid, but the second he tries to kill you – or you have one of your episodes – don't come crawling to me."
The daughter's cold expression didn't cease. Francesca huffed and turned on her heel as she muttered, "I'm going to work now. I'll be back by ten tonight."
Coraline was tempted to tell her to not let the door hit her on the way out, but she decided not to waste her breath.
•••
She ended up not going out to see Michael Langdon that day. Coraline had promised to help him again with his studies, but she wasn't going to give her mother the gratification she wanted. She was going to stay put right where she was: bored, in a cold room, while it rained buckets upon buckets outside.
Coraline had already finished her homework for the weekend, which consisted of finishing her ten-page essay on the Once and Future King by T.H. White. She got to page nine. Good enough.
For some reason, TBS was playing every Spider-Man movie to date throughout the night. From Toby Maguire's depressing interpretation to Emma Stone's horrible acting skills as she fell to her death, this marathon could distract her all night. Coraline decided that if she couldn't finish this essay on one of the most tedious books she had ever read, she might as well remind herself of her favorite movies as a child. She remembered having the weirdest crush on Toby Maguire when she was ten.
Coraline laid on her stomach as she watched Toby try his hand at fake crying on screen. Her desk lamp cast a bright, yellow light across the room, flickering slightly as the house settled. Coraline looked over at it. She awaited the day her electricity turned off for real. However, her mother always seemed to keep it under control.
But then came the knocking.
Coraline jolted in her spot. She sat up, turning to her window on the right. The knocking had come from that side of the room, as if someone was hitting their fist against the glass. What if it was an intruder? Her mom wasn't home, and there was no way she could fight off a guy with a knife, unless she had the upper hand. Coraline's thoughts were running a mile a minute. It was probably nothing. It was hopefully nothing.
Strands of brunette hair fell into Coraline's eyes as she hesitantly walked towards the window. Swallowing hard, she gripped the shade in her hands, curling her fingers tightly around the edge. Its nothing, she told herself. Do it. Just do it.
She flung the plastic shade up and released a shriek.
Michael Langdon. It was only Michael Langdon, sitting outside in the rain ... on her window ledge ... in the middle of the night. The scene screamed, serial killer, and yet, she was quickly pulling her window up for him.
"What are you doing here?!" She whispered loudly, despite no one else being in the house. Coraline wondered if her mother had somehow planted secret cameras in her room to watch her.
"I climbed the ledge," he stated bluntly, pointing to his path. "It was pretty easy to get up here."
Coraline raised a brow. "Okay, let me rephrase that: Why are you here at nine PM?!"
"You didn't stop by." His eyes softened. Coraline noticed his hair was damp with rainwater, as well as his clothes. "I got Miriam out of the house and everything."
She placed a piece of hair behind her ear. The rest hung loosely in a bun at the top of her head. "I'm sorry."
Michael looked from her face to the warm walls of her bedroom. "Aren't you gonna let me in? It's actually cold out here."
"Um – yeah, okay." Coraline pushed the window open wider and stepped back, wringing her sweaty hands out. "It's not as warm in here as it is in your house."
"That's fine," he replied, climbing inside the small window. Michael fell to the floor, but before Coraline could help him, he was already up on his own two feet, shaking out the water from his hair. His eyes scanned the room, taking note of the various music posters covering her walls and painted flowers that lined the crevices of the ceiling.
"I'm sorry, again," she repeated, taking a step closer. It was insane how much he towered over her, and Coraline wasn't even short. "I was ... busy."
He paced in a circle and took in every piece of her room, everything that told him something new about her. He admired the old pictures by the window, attached to a cork board and curling at the edges. The colors were faded and the faces within them were unrecognizable. The people in the photos looked like Coraline, and she was so young, so impressionable.
Michael blinked, bring himself back to the conversation. He twisted towards Coraline once again. "Doesn't seem like you were that busy to me." He smirked, gesturing with his thumb to the TV screen. Toby Maguire was still crying.
"You caught me red-handed," she replied, wiggling her fingers in the air. "I ... my mom is – well – forbidding us to hang out, and I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of finding me with you when she gets home later. So, I just ..." Her shoulders slouched. "I couldn't go."
Michael bobbed his head. "Looks like we have to be more secretive."
Coraline snorted, covering her mouth with her hand. "Both of our guardians are going to kill us."
"Miriam wouldn't ever do that," he said with a roll of his eyes. Coraline was still laughing, and the hand was still there. Michael's teeth grit as he pushed the hand away from her mouth. "Stop that. If we cease to reveal our real emotions then we all might as well be ... lifeless robots." He looked to his shoes and grimaced. "That would make for a killer book. You know, us all being robots?"
Coraline quirked a brow up and removed her hand. "Anyways," she said, pointing to the flat screen TV behind him, "have you watched all the Spider-Man films? Like, the original and remakes?"
Michael frowned. "Um – no. I've never heard of it."
Her mouth dropped. "You've never heard of Spider-Man?"
"Should I?"
"Of course!" She exclaimed, walking over to her almost-dead remote and beginning to rewind the TV movie. "That's it. You're sitting right here beside me and we're watching all of these movies. No matter how long it takes – or until my mom comes home."
Just as Michael began to stride to the corner of her bed, they heard a door slam downstairs. Michael froze, meeting Coraline's worried stare. "Spoke too soon," he giggled.
Her mother was home early.
"CORALINE ROSE!" Francesca's voice rang in tune with her loud steps up the staircase. "Are you still mad at me or have you simply tried to lock me out of your room so you could sneak out?!"
Michael raised his brow. "Coraline Rose?"
"You need to get out!" Coraline whispered. "Get out now! The window! Go!"
He scrambled for the window latch, quickly lifting it up to find himself on the ledge again. His clothes were even more soaked now and his hair hung in wet strands in front of his eyes. He looked back to the window, realizing Coraline had already closed it and was waiting for him on the other side to leave. He watched her brow crease with worry. Her hand went to the glass. Michael had the instinctive urge to place his hand on his side of the window. He reached out, ready to feel the coolness of glass, but she closed the shade halfway before he even moved.
From inside the room, Coraline felt woozy as she walked to her door. She never realized she locked it. Placing a hand on her forehead, she sighed and opened the door to see her mother's anxious expression. Coraline figured she had whiplash, or something like that.
"I'm sorry for what I said," Francesca said, releasing her hair from the clip that held it up. "I shouldn't dictate the people you have in your life. I just ... You deserve the best. I want things to go back to normal for you."
Coraline opened her mouth to speak, but then her vision went black.
Not again. Not now.
She gripped the door tightly, knees buckling from under her. Coraline tried to continue her thought, but she couldn't. Francesca's face twisted as she said, "You're not going to apologize too?"
"Mom, I –" Coraline's grip was slipping. Her knees clashed on the floor. Her hands were sticky with sweat. "I can't see. Mom, I can't – I can't see."
Her body curled on the floor, causing Coraline to bump her head on her dresser, but it wasn't like she could feel anything at the moment. She felt like everything was caving in on itself. Everything was black, like she was swimming in a sea of darkness. She always wondered if these visions would make her go fully blind someday. Maybe today was that day. She was going to melt in the black ocean forever.
Francesca dropped to her knees, screaming like she witnessed a murder, and maybe she had. She pushed her dark hair away from her eyes, unsure where to put her hands as her daughter jerked on the floor. "Cora! Coraline!" She shook her daughter's body quickly. "Coraline, wake up! Do you hear me?! I said, 'Wake up!'"
Sniffles emerged in her nose. Francesca pulled her daughter up from under her armpits. The drowsiness from a long day of work was setting in, but she couldn't let that control her. "Cora, please," she begged, hauling her daughter up. "Have you been taking your medication?! Huh?! Have you?! Please, Cora. Please, answer. I ... I don't ..."
Coraline twitched frantically as Francesca pulled her curled body into her arms. She didn't have the biggest muscles, but she could do this. She knew she could. She had to get to the hospital as fast as she could. "Everything's going to be okay, Coraline," she whispered. Her heels made it hard to run down the stairs. "I promise. I promise."
Michael Langdon still sat by the window ledge. Through the small slit in the shade, he saw the catastrophe that ensued between a mother and daughter, or even, a human and a visionary.
That was when Michael knew fate had brought Coraline Avery to him.
•••
A/N: I feel like I haven't made it clear (and that's my fault uGH) that Act I of this fic takes place like 6 or 5 months before Michael goes to the warlock school. So he's already left the Murder House a while ago and gone through his like "Antichrist Initiation" lol. I'm definitely stretching out the timeline, but it just helps with this story!
And remember
Also this fic is lowkey a fast burn because ya know kids these days and their weird hormones!!!!!!