Chapter I
With the morning sun creeping up over the tree line of the Oregon forest, that gold sunlight eventually found Coraline Jones…still deeply asleep. Of course, for a Saturday, what 11-year-old wouldn't want to be sleeping in?
"Coraline! Coraline Jones! Wake up now!" the loud, agitated voice of Mel Jones was almost enough for the blue-headed girl to wake up, if it weren't for the excessive amounts of pillow forts, movies, and popcorn Coraline had shared with Wybie the night before. Oh, it had seemed like fun, until Coraline saw the clock on her nightstand reading 2 in the morning.
"Coraline Jones! You said you wanted up early, and here it is!!" her mother warned a second time. Coraline rolled over.
Why does she want me up on a Saturday!?
The early, strong sunlight has crept up farther, and was now shining through Coraline's windows and directly into her face.
"Oh, fine, I'm up, I'm up!" she shouted. Despite being a rather heavy sleeper, Coraline always felt the most horrible case of grogginess in the morning, no matter how much she had slept the night before. Ripping the thin blankets of her pole-thin frame, Coraline recoiled her bare feet when they touched the cold of the dirty hardwood floor, instead of her small rug. "What the-?" Coraline started, looking around. Finally, with a very agitated and tired eye, she found her colorful rug. Cat was sleeping on it; all curled up near her nightstand with the sunlight glistening on his black, shabby fur.
"Cat! You mangy thing! Get off my rug," Coraline wailed to the animal. Cat opened a knowing blue eye, and then rolled over, his back facing the blue-haired girl. Coraline took a deep breath. If it wasn't for the fact that her mother was coming up the rickety stairs, she would've ripped the rug from beneath Cat's paws. Instead, knowing her mother's opposition to Cat and all his shedding and fleas, Coraline scooped up the ragged animal and dumped him in her closet, just as her mother came through the door.
"Coraline, don't you remember about gardening today? You told me yourself you wanted to be woken up bright and early to start planting some tulips. You're father's even agreed to do it!" her mother stated, eyeing her daughter with an annoyed look. Coraline rubbed her freezing arms, feeling annoyed herself. She vaguely remembered telling her mother that during dinner before she had snuck out her window to hang out with Wybie. Sighing, Coraline replied.
"Oh, yeah. I'll get dressed," she said. With one more glance, Mel Jones shut Coraline's door and trooped down the stairs. Coraline opened the closet door to reveal a very disgruntled and mad Cat. She picked him up and turned him opposite as she placed him on her bed so she could dress. Cat stretched as she got her shirt on, digging his overgrown claws into her fragile quilt. Coraline knit her eyebrows together.
"I'm sorry, Cat! You know you can't be in here when my mom's around!" she said. Cat understood all this, but he was always annoyed with her when she abruptly woke him from a nice dream by dumping him in her overstuffed closet. Pulling on her sneakers, Coraline opened her window for Cat, and swung her door open, jumping every other stair on her way down.
Then, Coraline noted, the mood seemed to change as soon as her feet touched the bottom step. The sunlight seemed to have gone cold, gleaming palely through the glass of the front door. It was oddly quiet, too. Usually on a Saturday morning, Coraline would hear her father whining loudly over how he had burnt his toast or his wife's coffee while she would groan. But not today, apparently. Straining her ears, Coraline tried to hear anything-anything-that would mean her parents were still in the kitchen.
Shrugging after hearing nothing, Coraline started to slow her pace into the kitchen, when she finally heard it. It sounded like very small, but human, like someone singing. Or perhaps humming. Turning her head around the corner, Coraline peered into the kitchen. There was her mother, still dressed in her faded purple bathrobe, her back turned to the entryway, humming while she messed with the waffle iron. Humming a very familiar tune. A tune that Coraline seemed to hear everywhere where there was silence, especially in her dreams.
Charlie Jones was nowhere in sight. Coraline started to breathe more deeply as memories and panic flooded her chest at the same time. Horrible, dark memories of button eyes, strange dolls that watched her every move, and the small door in the parlor room she refused to go into. Memories, she thought vaguely, that should've been nowhere near her mind on a bright Saturday morning.
"M-mom?" she called, remembering when she had done that in the Other World as well. Her mother turned around, revealing nothing more than a tired expression on her human, natural eyes.
"Yes, Coraline?" she asked. Coraline was breathing heavily, trying desperately to push out those memories shrouded in an almost surreal darkness.
"N-nothing," she answered shakily. Her mother nodded, but eyed her daughter with a practical eye.
"Breakfast, if you want it. I think your father's out in the garden, waiting for you," she said, just as Coraline was sitting down to a bowl of soggy cereal. Wasn't that what the-Coraline gulped-Other Mother had said to her on her second visit to her world? Shaking that thought, Coraline dug herself into her breakfast, while her real mother sat down beside her, sipping coffee and looking solemnly at her laptop.
After she had finished breakfast, Coraline shakily dumped her bowl into the sink, pulled on her banana yellow raincoat with the sleeves pulled up, and trooped out the front door. Ever since she had defeated the Beldam, Coraline had tried her hardest to feel happy and safe in her house. She had sneakily gotten her parents to take her to a few places like the movies or the amusement park in the next city over. Those ideas, she had reasoned, had completely blocked out the bad, stinging feeling she had experienced when the Other Mother had taken her parents.
She tried that while trying to be cheerful to the neighbors, even though Miss Spink and Miss Forcible were still trying to force feed her their taffy and Mr. Bobinsky still refused to show anyone his mice. If it weren't for the tiny bite marks on the floor and anything else wooden, Coraline would've thought that there were no mice at all, and maybe her mother was right about Mr. Bobinsky's sanity.
The morning sun, back to its bright yellow glow, was bouncing off of the building's pink painted walls and horribly old wood beams and railing. Coraline shielded her eyes, keeping her eyes down as she walked off the porch and towards the garden. As expected, when she got there, her father's lanky, awkward figure was hunched over a small flower bed. Coraline was sure Wybie was roaming the nearby woods until she came out. These thoughts comforted her, trying hard to block out the spacey lump in her throat from all the bad memories.
"Hey, dad," she called. Her father turned around, revealing smudges of mud one his face. Coraline smiled.
"Well, hey there, my twitchy witch girl," he said, patting the foam mat next to him. Coraline knelt down next to her father, taking the one tulip he offered. Already, he had done most of the bed, filling it with very colorful tulips, and a few bouquets of buds. Gingerly holding the tulip by its base of dirt, Coraline pushed the plant into its small hole, filling it up with the soil pushed out of the way.
"Has Wybie come out yet?" Coraline asked. Her father pulled himself up slightly, cracking his back and neck while he took of his gardening gloves.
"Yes, he has. But he told me he had something he wanted to show you, and ran back to his house to get it," Charlie answered.
What could Why-was-he-born have to show me? Another slug?
Coraline shook her head and reached for another tulip.
"Only a few more, and then we move to the next bed," Charlie stated. Coraline nodded. The sun was still glowing brightly, with not a cloud in the sky. Very unusual, Coraline thought, for Oregon. Even though it was summer, storm clouds came just as often as they did in winter. The roar of a motor bike was heard over Charlie and his daughter's soft padding of the earth, and Coraline rolled her eyes. Wybie always made a big entrance, although he often didn't know it.
Coraline looked up, wiping her hand on her open raincoat and swiping some blue strands out of her face. Wybie Lovat was standing to the left of Coraline's vision, one foot on the ground, the other still on the pedals of his rusty bike.
"Hello, Wybie," Coraline's father greeted. Wybie waved back shyly. With one hand he was holding up his bike, but the other held a medium sized brown square-thing covered in very old paper. Coraline stood up, dusting off more dirt from her knees, and crossed her arms. Wybie's eyes went big, un-mounting his bike clumsily to where his rolled up pants leg got caught on the pedal. He fell in a heap, making Coraline giggle. Wybie was a little annoying when he talked, she decided, but he was funny in his own geeky way.
"H-hello, Mr. Jones," Wybie answered as soon as he had gotten up. Coraline smirked. Coraline's father smiled and waved warmly.
"Ya' know, Coraline, why don't you and Wybie go check out whatever he's got to show you. I'll be fine on my own here." Coraline raised her eyebrows. She had hoped she could just spend the day exploring some more and helping with the garden, instead of going home.
"Ya sure, dad?" she asked, just in case. Her father nodded, waved them off, and bent over the tulips again. Wybie shakily reached for the handles of his fallen bike, picking them up, mounting and sat there waiting for Coraline. She jumped on behind him.
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As soon as they had entered Coraline's room, Wybie took off his muddy sneakers and welding helmet and threw them in the corner. Her mother detested Wybie's lack of hygiene when it came to his possessions. Cat was still sleeping on Coraline's bed where she had left him. Sitting down on the trunk at the end of the bed, Wybie started to rip open the paper on the brown parcel.
"So, what could you possibly have to show me, Why-were-you-born?" Coraline said, trying her hardest to lace her voice with sarcasm. Wybie frowned at her.
"Love you too, Jonesy. Gramma gave me this when I told her I was coming over last night. She was freaked out, but then gave me it and said not to open it until I got here," Wybie shrugged at his grandmother's antics. Coraline understood; Wybie believed in the Beldam after rescuing Coraline from her hand, but still thought his grandma's obsession with keeping him away from the Pink Palace was getting a little too old.
"Well, no reason we still can't open it. You never get anything from your grandma," Coraline replied. Wybie nodded, knowing his grandmother didn't like him touching her things or things from the Pink Palace. Ripping off the brown paper, Coraline and Wybie saw a rectangular photo album exposed. A very old photo album, from the look of it. Bound countless times in different shades of brown leather, the album was dusty and the small cord binding the cover was barely anything more than a thin string with the spine cracked, bent, and wrinkled.
"This is a disappointment," Coraline said. Wybie just closed his eyes and shrugged, taking the album from her hands. Tugging open the drawstring, Wybie gingerly opened the cover, a plume of dust puffing up and causing him to sneeze noisily. Coraline winced, but turned her attention to the book. On the first page were probably the oldest pictures she'd ever seen: black and white with a grainy look to them, but distinctly making out a small family. Wybie itched his nose and joined her in observation.
The family in the picture was fairly small; only four people. All were dressed in period clothing, looking like a middle class family at the turn of the century. The Pink Palace, Coraline noted, was behind them, looking much like it did presently, if not a little more up kept.
The picture looked decent, until Coraline observed the children and gave a gasp.
"What's wrong!?" Wybie jumped. Coraline shook her head and leaned in farther, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. In the picture were two children beneath their parents' feet, one a girl around her age, and a little boy, much younger than her, dressed in red trousers with tousled hair.
She wasn't my mother, but I remember my real mommy…
That radical thought forced Coraline to immediately throw the book against the far wall, hitting the side of her fireplace.
"Jonesy!" Wybie yelled. Running over to the book, he scooped it up gently. "This thing's old! Don't you get that from the dust and junk?" Coraline stared hard at the small leather book Wybie carried back over. That had been one of the ghost children, wasn't it? Once again, old, creepy thoughts ran up to Coraline only to smack her in the face. Of the neon colored bug-themed parlor room and the dark space behind the hall mirror where those poor children had been kept for so long without their parents.
Wybie opened the book again, taking care not to give it back to the blue-haired girl.
"What's with you? It's just a picture," Wybie said, trying to regain his posture. Coraline grunted and punched him lightly in the shoulder.
"Just a picture? Look at the boy in the first one," she commanded, pointing directly to the seemingly happy boy. Wybie studied it, but kept his frown.
"So what?" he finally decided. Coraline punched him again.
"That's one of the ghost children!" she yelled. "That's one of those poor kids that were caged in the Other World by the…Other Mother!" Looking down at some of the other pictures, Coraline saw nothing else of the ghost boy but of the previous neighbors who inhabited what was now Miss Spink and Forcible's flat. Coraline tried to take a deep breath, feeling adrenaline rushed to her legs and souring her stomach.
First that stupid humming downstairs, and now this crap!?
Coraline kept staring at the picture, refusing to let Wybie turn the page. She had almost become numb straining her eyes until he felt soft, lanky fur rubbing against her neck. Cat was on her shoulder, his front paws holding him there while he brushed his head against her neck with his back legs sitting on her bed. He had been so quiet…
Absentmindedly, she began rubbing his ears, and vaguely saw Wybie scratching his back.
So, I suppose you know the past does repeat itself? Said a voice that seemed to be echoing around the room, but coming from seemingly nowhere. Coraline jumped with Wybie simultaneously, making Cat pull his front paws off her. She turned around to face the feline quickly, seeing him in his usual relaxed state, cleaning his paws.
"Did you hear something?" Coraline asked dryly. Wybie stitched his eyebrows together as his frown increased, but he slowly and shyly nodded. She turned her head back to Cat.
"Did you say something?" she asked fervently. Cat looked at her with lazy blue eyes, and nodded once quickly. "H-how can you talk?" she asked. Cat gave a bored expression.
Surely by now you understand I am not like most cats, he stated.
Coraline huffed.
"That's not an answer, you shaggy dishcloth!" Cat hissed a little.
Insulting me won't get you anywhere. I might not tell you about that photograph.
The girl's eyes widened. She held the book up to Cat's view and pointed.
"This? You know about this?" Cat nodded. Coraline gave a frustrated grunt and threw the book down between her and Wybie. Wybie, in turn, gasped and picked it up gently again.
"A-am I really hearing the Cat?" Wybie said inaudibly and slowly. Coraline turned sharply. The book was in his lap. "I mean, I know you told me he can talk, but I thought only in that other place…" he trailed off.
"He can! Er, he should!" Coraline snapped her head back to Cat. "How can you talk, wuss puss?" Cat gazed up at her.
The Other World isn't the only place where a cat can talk, he said. But that's beside the point now. I thought you wanted to hear about that picture?
Coraline recoiled and changed the book from Wybie's hands to hers again.
"I…do," she said quietly. Cat nodded knowingly. "Well, this is one of the ghost children, isn't it?" Cat nodded again.
"Ghost children?" Wybie cut in. "Are you talking about those freaky ghost people behind the mirror?" Coraline snorted.
"Yeeeeeees, Wyyyyyybourn," she said flatly. Wybie crossed his arms and huffed. "So, can you tell me?" she asked the feline. Cat took a long gaze at her, his blue eyes ferociously making Coraline feel uncomfortable.
Of course I can. You're not the only child I've seen go through that door. You're just the first I've seen come out. That boy you see is indeed one of the children who were trapped behind that door. The first, actually, if my mind isn't failing me.
"Oh, what, so now you're hundreds of years old? Rotten old flea bag," Coraline muttered. She felt horribly irritated, both with Wybie for asking stupid questions and talking, and Cat for not getting to the point she was most desperate to hear. Cat hissed even louder at her statement.
"Can't you have any compassion, Jonesy?" Wybie said, stroking Cat's back. Coraline punched him, reasoning in her mind he should be more considerate. "I'm gonna get bruises on my arm now," he said, mostly to himself.
"Then maybe you shouldn't be so inconsiderate, Wybourn!" Wybie gave her a confused look and opened his mouth to fire another comeback, when Cat calmly interrupted them.
Honestly, you two fight more than one of my rivals from my youth. Anyways, whether or not you want to hear about that boy, I still have to tell you, since it is incompetent to your safety, Coraline.
Coraline knitted her eyebrows.
"Safety?" she sputtered. Cat nodded, stretching and swinging his tail slowly.
I said that history repeats itself, and the Beldam has certainly made that clear to me, so I can only hope that you can learn from the story I'm about to tell you.
The loud voice of Cat that rang in her ears started to pester Coraline, hearing it echo in her room like they were in a giant gymnasium.
"Cool, Cat! You're gonna tell us a story?" Wybie said, breaking her thoughts. Coraline puffed out her lip and crossed her arms.
Yes, Wybourn, I am. Coraline needs to hear this, and so do you.
Feeling uneasy at the prospect of hearing about one of the ghost children she had set free in the Other World, Coraline tried to calm as her heart started to race. She no longer wanted to hear about the boy in the old photograph. Sighing, she decided to humor Wybie and Cat (a sudden decision Coraline didn't even think about following through on) and said,
"Alright, Cat, tell us this story of yours." Cat gave what looked like a smile and lay down. Obviously this was going to be long. Coraline groaned.
The boy's name was Russell Hatcher, a small farm boy when I first saw him…
Plz review and tell me what you think!
