Coraline: A Unique Tale of Abduction and Motherhood

This narrative explores the complex relationship forged between a fairy queen and a stolen human child named Coraline Connelly, as detailed through a series of letters. Initially a transaction, the dynamic evolves unexpectedly, challenging traditional notions of motherhood, desire, and belonging within a dark fairy tale framework penned by Alix E. Harrow. The story unfolds through the perspective of Queen Jaref the Third, Empress of the Black Realms, chronicling her interactions with and growing attachment to the toddler Coraline.

The Initial Bargain: A Child for Years of Life

The story commences with Queen Jaref informing Coraline’s parents of the abduction. Jaref, familiar with parental panic, preemptively states Coraline’s whereabouts: safe, albeit causing minor chaos (“toddling through the obsidian halls… pestering the troll-guard and chattering with the ravens”) in her world-below palace. The initial offer for Coraline’s return is stark: invoke the Queen’s name thrice into a reflective surface, and Coraline will be returned for a tithe of nine years of the parent’s life, payable within seven moonsets. Failure means Coraline remains permanently. Jaref anticipates a swift response, framing the terms as “extremely reasonable.”

Jaref’s Shifting Perspective on Coraline

As days pass without contact from Coraline’s mother, Jaref’s tone shifts from transactional to perplexed and slightly impatient. She notes the mother’s unusual lack of “alacrity” and wonders about her maternal commitment. Jaref admits her solitude and thinning patience, compounded by Coraline’s persistent requests for a “Mr. Tiger,” forcing the Queen to dispatch a raven search party. This hints at Jaref’s reluctant engagement with the child’s needs beyond basic care.

The Queen’s attachment deepens, prompting a revised offer. Acknowledging nine years is significant, she reduces the tithe to seven, citing the bureaucratic cost of altering contracts. She also reveals Coraline has been consuming fairy food, despite usual prohibitions, indicating a longer-than-anticipated stay. A minor incident involving an “insufficiently purple” cup leads to Coraline receiving “a quite extravagant number of witch-cakes,” showcasing Jaref’s attempts at appeasement, albeit with unforeseen consequences.

These witch-cakes induce temporary magical abilities in Coraline (flight, invisibility, minor prophecy), leading to a chaotic escapade through the Black Realms, including interactions with pixies and inciting a border conflict with trolls. Despite the mayhem, seeing the sleeping Coraline—translucent and hovering—evokes a profound observation from Jaref. She sees not innocence, but potential: “small and fragile but somehow infinite. Like a rosebud or an apple-seed, something with ten thousand futures folded neatly inside it.” This moment marks a significant softening, prompting Jaref to consider waiving the tithe altogether, recognizing Coraline simply as a child, not a pawn or hellspawn.

Investigating the Mother’s Silence

Unable to comprehend a mother not reclaiming her child, Jaref dispatches spiders to investigate Coraline’s home. They find the mother, Constance Connelly, awake but unresponsive, clutching a stuffed tiger, surrounded by signs of distress (bills, a pamphlet on “Beating the Baby Blues”), but no magical impediment preventing her from calling Jaref. The Queen confesses her inability to understand abandoning a child like Coraline, whom she describes with grudging admiration: “canny as a crow and twice as wild, imperious, unmanageable, stubborn as stones — all the qualities… I would have hoped to find in my own heir.” Jaref judges the mother harshly, wishing for the concept of sin to label such “wicked wastefulness,” and begins to believe Coraline might be better off staying in the Night Court.

A Queen’s Confession and a Final Choice

In a moment of vulnerability, Jaref reveals her own centuries-long, fruitless struggle to conceive an heir, admitting she squandered her power attempting it. This personal history fuels her current practice of stealing mortal children to temporarily fill the void. This confession reframes her earlier judgment of Constance. Jaref acknowledges her harshness, realizing, “we do not all get to choose whether or not we are mothers.” She presents Constance with a final choice on the seventh night: call before the moon sets, and Coraline returns. Jaref highlights that despite fading memories of the world above, Coraline still asks for her mother, suggesting an enduring bond.

The Call and an Unexpected Resolution

Constance calls Jaref’s name “in a voice like dust and heartache,” despite her youth, poverty, and exhaustion, choosing her love for Coraline over herself. Jaref appears, and Coraline immediately leaps back to her mother. The Queen admits conflicting emotions: wishing Constance hadn’t called, yet being glad she did. She even wonders if she would have broken the contract herself, implying her own profound love for Coraline. A fleeting look from Coraline before Jaref vanishes leaves a lasting impression on the Queen.

The story concludes with a surprising epilogue. Constance contacts Jaref, prompted by Coraline’s “drastic and effective campaign” on the Queen’s behalf. They negotiate a new contract for shared custody, detailing arrangements for holidays and future expenses, including Coraline’s potential inheritance of the Black Realms or funding for an undergraduate degree. Jaref requests Constance pack the purple cup and Mr. Tiger for the next visit, sealing an unconventional family arrangement initiated by the abduction of Coraline.

Conclusion

Through Queen Jaref’s letters, the narrative provides a unique perspective on the character of Coraline Connelly. Far from a passive victim, Coraline is portrayed as a vibrant, resilient, and slightly chaotic force who inadvertently bridges two worlds and transforms the ancient, lonely Queen. The story uses the framework of a fairy tale abduction not just to explore peril, but to delve into complex themes of maternal love in its varied forms, the pain of infertility, the weight of choice, and the unexpected ways families can be forged. Coraline becomes the catalyst for profound change, ultimately leading to a resolution that honours the bonds formed in the most unlikely of circumstances.

© 2020 Alix E. Harrow

About the author

Author Alix E. Harrow posing for a photoA former academic and adjunct, Alix E. Harrow is now a full-time writer living in Kentucky with her husband and their semi-feral toddlers. In 2019, she won a Hugo Award for her short fiction and published her first novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, with Orbit/Redhook Books. Find her at @AlixEHarrow on Twitter.