Out of the Ordinary

The Awaiting Halls

Chapter 1

The Book, the Legend, and the Doctor

Coraline R. McCoy got the letter she thought she'd never receive.

It was a gloomy Sunday morning near the outskirts of London England, Coraline opened one eye as she lay on her side sleeping on the air mattress that was placed in a corner of the room, while boxes occupied the remaining space that the small room provided.

Yawning and stretching was her way of greeting the second day in a new country. Her father, Alvin McCoy, had a job offer at the nearby hospital a little over a month ago. The pay was good and the apartment was closer and more affordable than the house they previously lived in. Coraline personally thought that God was watching over her and her father because at the time of the offer, Coraline and her father were moving to a smaller, cheaper, apartment in a somewhat bad part of town. Under the pay rate that her father received in that hospital in America, he couldn't afford the house any more.

She was still getting use to the idea that she was living in an apartment, or a "flat" as she heard it called by the locals. Some of the kids back at school lived in apartments but she never felt comfortable going over to their "house" to play because of the people that could just stick their nose out and watch your every move, like some sort of spy.

Coraline rose off of the air mattress that her father set up for her and walked over to the vanity that faced her. Her brownish-reddish hair was curly and untamable, it wasn't like a sea of curls, it was more like a wave and waves go by their own rules. It would get in her way when she would be writing her homework and solving Sudoku puzzles, so she finally decided to put it all up in a hat she got for Christmas one day. Her father resented buying that hat for her ever since, because now, she hated going anywhere without it; even school.

She put the gray hat on her head, tucked all her hair into it and yawned before walking out of her room in her PJs. She walked across the hall and into the kitchen where her father was reading the paper at the round table, drinking his coffee, wearing his green bath robe.

Coraline yawned again as Alvin took notice. "Good Morning, sunshine." He said as his daughter walked over to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Good night, Dad" she mumbled as she started walking back towards her room.

"You'll have to get use to the time changes sooner or later. Might as well be today, you start school in less than a month." He said with the tone in his voice that made her turn back towards the refrigerator to look for some breakfast.

She looked at the vacancy in the refrigerator, save for a milk jug that had about an inch left in it and some baking soda near the back. "Dad, there's nothing here."

"I was actually thinking about taking you out for breakfast." Mr. McCoy put down his paper and coffee mug. Coraline looked at her father, His orange colored mustache freckled with coffee drops, and his almost-bald head seemed to match the smile and the rough voice of her Dad.

"We're in a new country, you and your Mom were born here, and I thought I'd take you to the place where I met her and to the Café' we went to afterwards. Kind of a symbolic first meal out thing." He walked over to her as he explained.

"Dad" she began to argue "We've still got a lot to unpack, I've got to find my clothes still-"

"Well until my next pay check, I can't afford to go to the store." He announced to her. "Whichever store that is anyway."

"Dad…" Coraline who frowned and grimace to her Dad, whispered "I'm still sore."

"Oh, Coraline." He rolled his blue eyes. "If you eat more, I'm sure you'll feel better. We have to go and see the neiborhood anyway. I've got to find out which school you're going to attend and where the grocery store is and I thought we'd go into the city and see if we could go by Baker Street. There's a Sherlock Holmes museum there-"

"Ok, I'll go." Coraline finally gave in. Her Dad was the kind of person that she would trust with her life. While she was uptight, jumpy and tended to panic, her Dad was laied back and took things as they came. He always had a plan and she wasn't the only person who admired him for this quality.

After all, her Mother married him.

"But" she pointed a pale finger at her dad, "we've got to unpack our clothes first ok?"

Her father just rolled his eyes and said "Fine." Coraline smiled and hugged her Dad before jumping out of the kitchen and back into her room.

Coraline quickly began to spot the boxes where she had put an "C-C" mark that signaled her clothes. And as she began to work, her mind wandered and focused on her own self being. Analyzing herself: as if she was a character, a normal part of a routine for her. Usually the start of making a new character for a new story she was cooking up:

Coraline was always a girl who liked things to be orderly and planed ahead of time. Her room was always clean and she got her chores done right the first time when she was asked. Her Mom had done her best to get that automatic response built in when she was still alive and beyond her death, Coraline still upheld the house rules and the cleaning.

For her, cleaning was an escape. The autopilot that made Coraline's body move, however sore it was, gave her mind time to fantasize and think about different things. Weather it was a new idea for a story or just about what to do next; a technique developed over years of loneliness and a remedy for sadness, for Coraline had always been an odd girl. She didn't enjoy playing with the other kids, but more being by herself. There was just something about the way her mind worked, something that made her…SMARTER or more aware of things that made kids avoid her; but it wasn't until the kids started to avoid her that she noticed. She came home crying that night to her Mom.

Her Mom had set her on her lap and held her until she calmed down. Coraline still remembered her mother's voice and how she hummed a little un-nameable tune that soothed her. Her Mother had said "Everyone has a different way of looking at things; it's called a "Perspective". You are very unique, Coraline. You see things and understand things that other kids can't and so they don't really know what to say or how to act around you. Just wait until they get older, then they'll start getting it and then you'll start making friends. "

So until then, Coraline took to ether wandering around the playground, making up her own stories and living in her imagination or into the library. The librarian, Mr. Nall, was a nice man who first showed her what books could do for her. Not the Dr. Seuss books that she was use to, the REAL ones. With chapters that were sometimes, more then she could count.

Of course there were books that she didn't like and didn't bother reading. Like stories with Mary Sues in them, as she learned to call them, or ones where little animals talked. Charlotte's Web was ok, it's just she didn't really like it that much. But while that helped her mind, it also became a barrier that put her away from the world around her; she didn't want to be around other people or in crowds. Her books were her world and the harder they were to read; the more annoyed she'd get at people.

To her own father's surprise, in 4th grade, she had pulled a book from her Dad's collection and had taken a liking to the character in the book, seeing as they were similar in many ways. She especially took note of the advice Sherlock gave to Watson in "The Adventure of the Empty House", when he referred to the Late Mary Watson "Work is the best antidote to sorrow."

At the time she read that line however, it was just the thing she needed to cope with the harsh reality of losing her Mother. About 3 years after Coraline came home crying, there was a horrific accident that she still had yet to hear about. All that she remembered was her father coming home with his scrubs still on with the face that could have been mistaken for a corpse, to tell her the news.

That wasn't the first bad thing to happen that week though. Coraline had been bed ridden since an accident herself and really needed her Mom to be there for her.

And since then, she never really stopped working in her own little world she developed to make any connection with the outside world, save for her Dad. To her, he was the only person she could really depend on.

Ahead of her class mates in every way, but when something began to annoy her she just couldn't keep her mouth shut. When something bothered her or when she had a project to do, she wouldn't eat, sleep or take a break until it was completed at 110% effort.

When she would start looking thin, her Dad would pop his head into her room, flick the lights off and say "Sherlock, this is your doctor speaking, get something to eat."

Kind of funny that while he had to make his daughter eat, he himself had a thing about skipping meals.

"That's where I get it from." Coraline thought to herself as she pulled out the first box of 2. After opening and emptying the contents she dressed herself in what she could find, blue jeans and a dark brown tee-shirt with a feint pirate symbol on it; the skull and crossbones. Most likely from the Disney store at the time "Pirates of the Carrabin" was first coming out.

The hand me downs didn't bother her, they were loose and comfy: it was shopping for new clothes that did.

Coraline had pulled out the second box and had just begun to open it when she began to hear a tapping sound.

She paused and looked around to see if she dropped something. As she did, the sound of the tapping continued. Coraline, figuring out that the sound wasn't coming from her, thought for a moment. This sound was familiar, when her Mom was alive, she heard this every day. What was it again? She didn't have to think long though as she spotted the source of the sound with gaping amazement.

An OWL with a letter in its beak was tapping on a round window that was placed facing north of the room; wanting in.

Coraline dropped the PJ's she was holding onto the floor. She stuck herself out of the door way and leaned into the hall as much as she could, holding on to the door frame for support. "DAD! DAD, COME HERE QUICK!" she shouted to her Dad that was still in the kitchen. A moment later, her Dad appeared outside her door, looking down at his daughter. "What's wrong?" he asked before she stepped to the side and showed him in. As he stepped in the tapping increased in pace and her father's gaze fell on the window.

"Does it have the wrong address?" She asked, thinking that there wasn't anyone qualified to receive the letter short of her supposedly dead grandparents on her Mom's side.

Her father walked over to the glass and looked at window for a way to open it, when he found none he yelled loud enough for the owl to hear beyond the glass "There's a way in through the Kitchen!" he pointed in the direction of the kitchen and with that the gray and black spotted owl turned and flew in said-direction. Mr. McCoy turned out of the room and Coraline followed, speaking to her father.

"Dad, what's it for?" She asked as the owl seemed to float through the open window that was placed just over the sink and onto the wooden table where the coffee mug still rested. It promptly opened its beak, thus dropping the parchment envelope onto the table and then, as quickly as it came, flew out the window and into the damp, gray London morning. The only evidence that it was there at all was the letter and a few scratches on the wood made from its talons.

Mr. McCoy walked over to the letter in 3 big strides. He picked up the envelope and looked at the address for a moment before grinning so big all his teeth could be seen. He handed the envelope over to Coraline, who didn't take it at first, but upon seeing the address took it from his hand saying "No way."

Coraline's whole body trembled, her heart seemed to flutter and she began to breathe shakily as she read the address on the parchment envelope, written in emerald green ink:

Miss C. McCoy

Second Bedroom

Floor 2, App 221

Darwin Court:

London

Coraline slowly turned over the envelope as she made her way to a chair placed at the table and sat down. Trembling, she reached a paper white trembling hand into the envelope and pulled out 3 folded pieces of parchment. Not white paper, or lined paper but PARCHMENT. She took the innermost one and set the other 2 off on the table. Her father hung over her shoulder baring his grin of happiness and pride as Coraline flipped open the letter and read aloud.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

Of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmistress: Minerva McGonagall

(Order of Merlin, First Class)

"Dear Miss McCoy,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31st.

Yours sincerely,

Filius Flitwick

Deputy Headmaster"

Coraline had choked slightly on the part when it said she had been accepted. She felt tears come into her eyes after she finished, feeling her Dad pat his rough hand on her shoulder. Her father's words fell flat as she collected her own thoughts; he picked up the other two letters as she kept going over the facts again in her mind. Her father kept going on not noticing that she wasn't listening to him.

She felt…terrible…

She finally snapped and stood up quickly, biting her lip and holding back tears of sadness and anger. Mr. McCoy stopped talking and looked at his only daughter with such emotion and frustration.

"Dad," she managed to push out of her mouth without going into sobs. "You know I can't go. You might as well just burn the thing and forget all about it." She began to cry a little more as each breath she took made the weight in her chest increase. "I just moved here…They probably don't know that I'm a…"

No matter how many years she had lived with it, no matter how many hours she kept telling herself in her head, she still couldn't say "I'm a werewolf." out loud.

"Not after all the paperwork I had to sign in order to move from America. Maybe" her Dad interrupted her self-pity "You should let me read this additional letter."

Coraline's ears seemed to perk up as her Dad unfolded the outer most letter of the 3 and read aloud.

"Dear Miss McCoy,

We are aware of your condition and have made special arrangements that will allow you to attend Hogwarts. Tomorrow at 10:00, Professor McGonagall shall come to discuss arrangements and procedures to insure safety and secrecy during such times.

Yours sincerely,

Filius Flitwick

Deputy Headmaster"

Coraline let it all sink in as her father finished reading the attachment.

"Special arrangements that will allow you to attend Hogwarts." She thought over and over in her mind. The reality began to sink in; the weight in her chest had turned into helium and like a balloon, began to rise high above London. She jumped up and smiled at her Dad as he smiled back, both of the McCoy's laughed so hard, not a single word needed to be uttered to describe what they were so happy about.

She was going to Hogwarts!