Or 'where Other Wybie found it in himself to oppose the Beldam'

As the Beldam's footsteps ring louder and louder outside the living room, as the Living Sand that he's crafted from begins melting into nothing, Other Wybie does not falter.

He has done right by him. He has, in a way, gone above and beyond the call of duty as it was ingrained into his stitching from the moment of his creation.

For this, he will not die smiling.

His first memories are a combination of loud noises, bright sensations and simple, clear-cut emotions.

He remembers mixed awe and pain from when the Beldam stitched on his eyes and the tiny sting of her needle and watching the little patches of black cloth suddenly become his, his hands, mobile and distinctly his own.

He knows he has to act a certain way towards the Father and Mr. Bobinsky and Misses Spink and Forcible. He feels a kinship to them. They are simple, and easy.

But there's anticipation in him as he stands outside The House as the clinking of forks and the smell of waffles and honey and sausage emanates out towards him in waves.

And when the door finally opens, when he first sets eyes on Coraline Jones, he knows.

He's never seen her before, but it's as if his feelings always knew her. Her joy makes his joy grow brighter, like the colorful balloons in Other Bobinsky's attic, and he can't seem to wait to get just another dose of the giggles and awed looks. He's not made to talk, but really, does it matter? Wouldn't the words get in the way of listening to just one more of Coraline Jones' vivid exclamations of joy?

But the balloons would sometime pop, too.

The balloons could be pumped too full of helium for their thin little skins, and with a sharp CLACK they'd be gone. The pieces of rubber that remain are so unlike the balloons, he'd think then – so dull, so small, where balloons were supposed to be so bright, so jolly.

So sad, to see them go like that.

And that's how he feels, as he hands Coraline over to the Beldam that night, the night she is supposed to choose. And suddenly his rigid smile is collapsing, like the stitches at the corners of his lips have weights, and they may well have, with his heart feeling so heavy.

And he knows the Beldam knows, the moment she closes the door on his drooping face, when she'd let him go up and watch Coraline fall asleep wih Other Father and herself just the night before.

"Whatever shall I do with you, Other Wybie? Hm?"

They're down in the Sewing Room, where nobody goes without the Beldam's consent. There aren't many chairs here, but one of them can move, and its arms are wrapped around his wrists like creeping vines.

"I don't like this face you're making. It seems I can't trust you to put on another one before Coraline wakes up again." The Beldam was still in her Mother disguise, and all the more frightening for it, because thinking of who she really looked like and how very different she could be, just on a whim, reminded him that she was very, very powerful. Other Wybie felt a selfless kind of fear, one that was all for Coraline, because she still didn't know.

He didn't fear for himself. He knew what'd be happening to him now.

The Beldam's voice was even and sweet. Calm, even. She might have been whispering kind nothings to a child about to fall asleep. "You will not be seeing her again. Even if she doesn't accept her buttons tonight, I'm afraid you've been a heaping handful, and that does not sit well with me at all."

He saw the needle run through with thread, thick thread that did not match his colors, and that, he knew was sign enough that he really was never to see Coraline Jones again.

And it was that thought which drove the tremors and vain attempts at tears from his tear duct-less eyes, more than the Beldam's relentless needlessly violent stitches.

Other Wybie wonders, as the Beldam's angry footsteps shake the walls and stairs like with the force of a collapsing world, what his flesh and blood original must feel, if a little burlap copy of him could go against the command ingrained in his every thread and button.

All to protect a girl's balloon bright laughter.

He squares his shoulders as much as his slight kyphosis allows. He does not smile.

He will not be unmade with the face she gave him.