Although she had come close to it on several occasions, Coraline Jones had never actually died. Therefore, she couldn't really fathom what being dead would feel like, but she felt certain that this was not it.

Firstly, she could feel her heart beating. In fact, that was just about all she could feel. It was slow and steady, ba-thump, ba-thump, and it weighed down on her like a million tonnes of liquid asphalt.

Secondly, it was sunny. Her eyes were closed, but the sun shone through, illuminating each and every vein that ran through her eyelid, casting a pink haze over her scattered mind.

And finally, her mother was calling to her. It wasn't a hallucination; she could tell. And it wasn't the Other Mother, either. The voice was not warm, or comforting. In fact it was the polar opposite. It was shrill and forceful. It was Coraline's real mother.

"Coraline! Coraline!" The voice had taken on physical from, and latched onto Coraline's shoulder. It shook her profusely.

The girl groaned, and rolled over where she lay. This had to be a dream, or some horrific illusion. She thrashed and mumbled against the force. "No… go away…"

"I might once you get up off the sofa and sweep up all this junk. Seriously, I don't mind you having slumber parties with your… friend… but can you not do them in here?"

Her mother stopped shaking, and her sneakers padded against the old floorboards. Coraline lay still, listening to her mother flit about the room. Her steps were determined and stressed, and her shallow breaths surfaced in between her annoyed rantings. She stopped moving.

"Coraline? Did you here a single word I said? Get up!"

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was white. It was warm and burning, and she shied away at first. Her eyelids fluttered against the beams that cascaded upon her face, until she drew her hand up as a visor and let her retinas adjust.

It was her house. Plainly, simply, it was hers. Sunlight filtered in from the windows about the room, and the cracked white plaster gathered at the base of the chandelier that hung from the ceiling. The wallpaper was peeling, and slightly faded, and the doorframes were cracked and slightly misaligned. Grey floor boards ran the length of the room, and a dusty fireplace adorned with snow globes stood rigid against the wall.

Then, there was her mother. Mel Jones, mildly successful dedicated column writer, drummed her fingers across the smooth surface of the mantelpiece. Her fingernails were neatly kept, yet cut brutally short, and a thin black barrier of dirt lay underneath them. Her curvaceous body leaned against the wall, her acute features poised in a deadly irritated manner. Her short black hair hung limply around her face, part of her fringe tucked loosely behind one ear. Her lips were pale, her nails unpainted, and she wore nothing elegant nor extravagant. She was simply Mel, as Coraline remembered her from her childhood years. But that meant…

"What's the date?" Coraline sat bolt upright, cursing as she did so, for the pain that thundered down her spine caused a blinding flash of discomfort to rock her body. Mel stared at her for a moment, eyebrow raised, before she answered.

"It's not like you to have back pains," she began, "But that's what you get for sleeping on the sofa."

"What's the date?" Coraline demanded again, testing the strength of her limbs. There wasn't an awful lot.

Her mother's face turned to stone, before she peeled herself from the wall and headed across the room. "August twelve," she offered dryly.

"Hey… it's nearly my birthday," Coraline sighed with the first smile she had been able to muster in goodness-knows how long. She hesitantly stood up, using the back of the sofa for support. Uneasy step after uneasy step, she gradually regained movement in her body. Mel watched her, bewildered, before grabbing the broom from behind a stack of cardboard boxes and tossing it to Coraline.

"Welcome back to reality," she mused. "Good to see you've not got concussion. Seriously, I don't know what you kids do up here, but you sure as hell make enough noise."

"…Kids?" Coraline raised an eyebrow.

"And you can't say otherwise until you get your driver's licence," Mel replied, sauntering out into the hall. She paused, hand on the door frame, and looked over her shoulder at her daughter. "You've still got a good two weeks to go before you're thirteen. Technically, you're still a kid. Now, get that plaster swept up, and when you're done you can help your father in the garden. He bought a new truckload of tulips." Then she strolled out into the hall, and Coraline listened to her move down the stairs and into the kitchen below.

Thirteen… thirteen… did that mean… No, it couldn't. She was free; the blood of the beldam had dried on her hands. She'd hauled her ass up that corridor, and it had nearly drawn her in…

Coraline let the broom clatter to the floor, as she raced across the room to the opposite wall. A chest of drawers stood against it… Coraline remembered the day when her mother bought it from the furniture store, and she had to help lug it up the stairs. But that was ages ago… in her past.

She pressed her back to the bureau and began to nudge it across the floor, making sure her weight didn't tip it. She kept it going until she hit the opposite wall, and then her tensed, aching spine relaxed, and she returned to the now bare section of the room.

Kneeling down, she began to run her fingers against every inch, starting from the far left, working her way to the middle. The wallpaper was full of age-old ridges, and she could feel the bricks behind it. But no little door. No frame, no keyhole. It was gone.

Then Coraline caught sight of something. It was barely noticeable against the dimming pattern, but she could still see it clearly with that aid of warm summer daylight. A tiny little scorch mark, no bigger than her finger print, stood forever on the spot where the door once was. It was the shape of a keyhole. She ran her fingers across it; it was freezing to the touch. There was nothing beneath, nothing but solid brick.

The other world really was gone.

She lugged the empty chest of drawers back across the wall; she hadn't a portion of strength, and she silently cursed her child's arms for being so spindly. She gathered up the broom, and began to sweep up the cracked plaster and layers of dust on the floor; until something amongst the grey caught her eye.

It glistened and danced in the sunlight, and its light clambered across her face and sat against her eye, causing it to twitch. She hesitantly ambled towards it, crossing her feet over as she walked, watching the glimmering bead of light like a hawk. She drew close to the pile of dust in which it lay, and dug through it with her thumb and index finger, until her grip fell against the item. She closed her palm around it, and dirt spilled from the sides of her closed fist. Like a clam, she opened the shell her fingers had created and held its pearl to the sun. It was her engagement ring.

"Oh god… Robin…" she sighed, staring at the little golden circle in her hand. Inside the ring her name had been engraved, and its silky metal vines twisted around the base of a 20 carat monster of a diamond. She slipped it on her ring finger; the band was too big. It slid around her stick-like fingers and the weight of the stone drew toward the ground. So Coraline pocketed it, and ran out into the hall.

She thundered down the stairs, nostalgia overwhelming her as everything about the hallway brought back a barrage of childhood memories. The slick banister; she'd slid down it on many occasions, but never did again after she fell of and broke her wrist at fourteen. The door to the boiler room, the lock of which she'd hot glued and sealed closed after flicking the power switch off, to stop her father using his computer on a beautiful summer's day. That wicker chair against the base of the staircase that she'd never paid much attention to, until a hot night when she was sixteen that she'd sat on it and cried because Jonah McCormick broke up with her on the porch.

She stopped when she reached that chair, one foot still on the last stair, one hand on the banister, and the ring in the front pocket of her jeans. Something about those memories… they had a connection. This entire room was connected, a spider web of memories that was woven about the space. Coraline slowly let herself down, and came to rest upon the chair. She delved into her brain, sorting out the new form the old, looking for the link… until at last she found it, and Coraline remembered the most important thing in her life.

Wybie.

Suddenly the engagement ring in her pocket felt heavy as lead, and she felt guilty for keeping it with her, like it wasn't hers to keep. It held no meaning to her anymore; after all, she was a child, and the man who had gave it to her was a child too, probably playing baseball somewhere in Salem. After all that had happened, she still remembered that. It made Coraline chuckle meekly.

Slowly getting up from the chair, she lumbered into the kitchen, and sat down opposite her mother, who was typing like a machine with her left hand and sipping coffee with her right. Her hand paused over the keyboard like a claw in a crane machine, the white porcelain resting on her lips, as Mel stared her daughter down over the radiating blue screen of her laptop. "What?" she asked plainly.

"Do you think Dad would mind if I borrowed his computer for a few minutes?"

Mel resumed her typing, eyes narrowing. "What for?"

Coraline scooted her chair in, and rested her hands on the kitchen table. She ran her fingers along the grain of the wood, re-familiarising herself with the notches, gauges and paint stains that littered its once pristine surface. Funny, how something that she'd once deemed so insignificant like a round beech wood table could hold such great sentimental value. Before she was shackled to the chain of memories, she looked up, and led her brain back on topic.

"I need to email a friend," she said, "from Michigan. I promised I'd get back to her this weekend."

Coraline's mother hesitated for a moment, the hollow thundering across the keyboard ceasing. It resumed as she drew in breath. "If you break it, I'm taking money out of your bank account to replace it," she warned.

--

The computer hummed monotonously as Coraline sat down in front of the sleepy black screen. She shook the mouse until a faint click from the monitor brought the screen to life. The wallpaper, a family picture back at Pontiac Stadium, greeted her with three smiling faces. Coraline willed the pointer along the screen, down onto the toolbar and running left across the grey strip, until it hovered over the big blue W that symbolised Microsoft Word. She clicked it once, ever so slowly, and waited for the page to load. A blank white document splurged across the screen, with the little black marker blinking happily away in the top left. Coraline's fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment, and, feeling the ring in her pocket, she took a deep breath and began to type.

Robin,

I realise how utterly disturbing and weird this is, but you have to see this through. I'm not pulling a prank on you; I'm nobody you've ever met before, really. But I guess you can say that I'm psychic, because I bring a word of warning to you.

On the 4th of March in about 16 year's time, you may or may not meet a girl at a party in San Francisco. She may or may not be on a book tour, and I can guarantee you'll be there with your pompous artsy friends. The first thing you'll think to yourself when you notice her is how vibrant her dress is, and how much she doesn't suit the color purple. When you decide to tell her this over champagne on the balcony at four in the morning, she may or may not toss her drink in your face and go back inside to possibly tell everyone that you tried to feel her up. This is the moment when you fall in love with her.

As awesome as this girl is, she will never love you back.

Don't despair. You can still do all the things you were meant to in the future. You guys can go to the arcade and play Dance Dance Revolution until the clerks kick you off. You can go to the boardwalk and chase seagulls into the ocean. You can curl up on the sofa on Tuesdays for Crime Night on cable. Because you guys are the best of friends, alike in every way. Except, no matter how much you beg, she will never go see Breaking Dawn with you. Because it sucks, Robin. It sucks.

So please, if you ever encounter this girl, I beg you not to make a move. She's already in love, and always will be.

Love from Coraline.

The printer whirred into life as the small note slipped from between its cave of wonders, and Coraline snatched it up, blowing on the ink and gently pressing her lips to the warm paper. She smiled, and folded the paper into thirds, before slipping it into a crisp white envelope. She held it up to the light, restrained by the metal blinds. Slowly, carefully, as if it was made of glass, Coraline laid the package down on the windowsill. Her hand delved into her pocket, and clamped around the warm, smooth ring. And without ever uncurling her fingers and letting the light grace its surface, she slid it into the paper envelope, and sealed it.

Meandering down the driveway, Coraline slipped the letter into the mailbox, addressed to her former-future fiancé in Salem. She slipped it in the silver metal arch, and raised the little red flag, stepping back to reminisce. She turned on her heel, and looked back at the property, taking in everything she had once forgotten. The Pink Palace sign swayed forlornly in the hot wind, and the grey clouds drifted overhead. The paint on the clapboard that covered the house was peeling and flaking, and the roof dipped and chipped at regular intervals. The path was beaten, and the railings were crooked and rusty. The house looked almost derelict, save for the vibrant garden that was beginning to snake its way around the paths. Coraline sighed, and ambled back towards the house. It was good to be home.

The wrought iron gates stood open on the cobbles that trailed up to the elaborate garden. Coraline slipped through, pushing them slightly forward so they creaked agonizingly. The dismal grey path was swept, and the stone pillars and boxes lined with blooming flowers. Tulips burst from the black soil, and the makings of a great willow tree melted over the scene. Coraline's eyes scanned the area as she slowly traipsed over the bridge. Leaning on it, she surveyed her kingdom below, the grey and red and pink and yellow colliding in harmony. Her hazel doe-eyes swept and dipped across the garden, lingering on the old dead forest that lay behind the other gate. Her mind was lost in the aching dead bows, when all of a sudden she heard a voice she'd all but forgotten.

"Coraline!"

She whipped around out of her easy coma and stared at the boy who had addressed her. Wybie Lovat, awkward, lop-sided and slightly disproportionate, crept tentatively towards her from the other side of the garden. He grinned at her with his bashful crooked face.

Wybie leaned casually against the stone enclosure of flowers, folding his arms and crossing his legs. For a moment, it took Coraline's mind to tick over, to process the information that he was indeed standing there. And he was like her. Twelve. Well, thirteen, as she cursed him inwardly for his being that little bit older than her. One day in the future, Coraline remembered (or predicted – she couldn't tell any more), he would taunt her with his L-plates and ability to get into a restricted movie legally.

She smiled at Wybie then, and he pulled himself vertical, as did she. Coraline pulled the sleeves down on her sweater and hugged herself in the slightly cold morning air, before briskly beginning to walk towards the place where her friend was standing. In a few moments, she had broken out into a run, being able to take the distance between them no longer. The gap closed and he stretched out his arms, as she came rocketing towards him and her thin body clamped to his. His arms curled around her waist and her shoulders, and she cradled his neck in her freezing hands. She smiled into his shoulder, and they stood there, in the morning air, together.

--

"I'm starting to forget things now. Little things. Pieces of my life."

Days had passed since the ordeal, scars had healed and minds had stabilised. Coraline had eased back into the motions of life as a pre-pubescent girl in Ashville, and for the first time had left the Pink Palace with Wybie to sit in the photo booth in the arcade. They'd shut the curtains, piled in with a frozen yoghurt each, and sat curled on the touch screen. An angry group of girls chattered and hovered impatiently, hammering on the side of the booth. Coraline kicked back.

"I know what you mean," Wybie replied, absent-mindedly twirling his spork. "Kinda like… what happened in the twenty years to come never actually happened."

"Which, in all respects, is correct. Shut up, you stupid tramps!" Coraline was momentarily distracted by the group on the outside of the booth, as she pounded against the flimsy metal walls. They abruptly started nattering, before Coraline turned back to her conversation.

Wybie laughed. "So…" he continued, "Now that you have your whole life ahead of you… is there anything you want to do d-differently?"

"Oh, of course!" Coraline leapt from her seating position to stand opposite Wybie, and leaned back as she stared dazedly into space. "For starters, I'm not going out with Jonah McCormick, or Seth White…"

"What about Melissa Blakely?"

Coraline looked at Wybie confusedly for a moment, before her brain ticked over onto the newest slide of realization, and she chuckled, displaying a devious grin. "I think she's a keeper."

"You can't be serious," Wybie coughed as he choked on his frozen yoghurt. He toppled off his perch, lying face first on the sticky arcade carpet, still struggling to breathe. A mop of short blue hair loomed in front of his face, and two spindly arms pulled him to his knees.

"You right there, Wybourne?"

Once the children had finally died out of their laughing fit, they gathered their things and shipped out of the booth. Coraline grinned widely at the queen bee (who in the next four months would experience a humiliating defeat in a schoolyard punch-up with Coraline herself), and sauntered out into the open Ashland air.

"Enough of me…" Coraline said, hooking her arm around Wybie's, as the strolled down the street, "what about you? Is your future going to take a drastic turn in another direction?"

"Well…" Wybie thought for a moment. "I think… I'm gonna at least try to pass English,"

"Good call," Coraline grinned.

"And maybe I'll go to college, get a degree in something, renovate the house…"

Coraline stopped walking, yanking Wybie back on her arm. "I just had a thought," she raised her eyebrows.

"Wh-what?"

"Are you actually going to ask me to prom instead of make stupid comments about my dress when I get picked up?"

Wybie's gaze averted, flitting along the cobbles and their muddy sneakers. His face tingled as a very noticeable blush danced across his cheeks like a rash, and he began to stammer and trip. "Well… I don't… I mean, if you want… Jonah asked…." He stuttered as his thought train derailed.

Coraline cackled, and began to walk again, dragging the boy behind her. "Chill out dude, I was only winding you up."

"Huh," Wybie breathed.

"Oh, hey, I gotta go!" Coraline detached herself from Wybie, and dunked her empty yoghurt pot in a nearby trash can. "Mom wants me to help her move some stuff downstairs. You know what…" she stared at him for a few seconds, before tossing her burgundy bag over her shoulder, withdrawing a bus pass. "… I really missed this place. See you later."

He waved at her as she turned on her heel and took down a side street towards to nearest bus stop, her hair visible amongst the teeming streets. Finally, Coraline disappeared from view behind the chemist, and Wybie began to amble towards the lamppost to which he'd chained his bike.

--

In a mad dash to find his socks, Wybie had let the phone ring on for quite some time. It wasn't until his grandmother had called up the stairs for him to either pick it up or disconnect the thing, that he picked up. "H-hello?" he stuttered, catching the device between his shoulder and his ear as he tossed his clutter about the floor.

"Oh my god, it took you long enough!" it was Coraline. Wybie finally stopped rummaging, and held aloft his prized sock. Tugging it on, he caught hold of the phone again, bringing it to the other ear.

"Oh, hey," he breathed. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Chewing noises could be heard from down the other end. "I was just wondering," said Coraline, her mouth full of something, "if you wanted to come over tonight? We're finished shifting the furniture around, and I actually get to pick whatever I want from the video store."

"Uh, sure. It's not like I have anything better to do." Wybie crossed the room and collapsed into his office chair, kicking his crumpled jacket off it as he did so. The material fell heavily to the floor, and something clunked down with it. Puzzled, Wybie poked it with his foot. There was something solid in there.

Coraline continued to chat away on the other line as Wybie slumped to the floor, and began to sift through the heavy black material until he found the internal pocket on his coat. Hesitantly shoving a hand in there, he withdrew two items: a rusty old photo frame, the exact same one standing empty on his desk, and an A3-sized book, about two and a half inches thick. Coraline's book.

As if it were contaminated, Wybie drew back the cover between his thumb and forefinger. The dirt-stained pages were slightly stuck together; with a ruler, he separated them. Thumbing through the contents, Wybie flipped the pages this way and that, back to front. The entire book was blank. There wasn't a single letter in there.

Then something caught his eye. Towards the beginning of the book, there was a small ink blot. Flicking back through the pages, Wybie crossed his legs and looked at the writing. The letters were stout and neatly-spaced, and slightly slanting to the right; it was written by a left-hander. Coraline was left-handed.

There was a furious scribble towards the middle of the page, as if she had scored something out. It wasn't particularly huge; about the length of a fingernail. The scribble was neat and straight, and the ink had slightly disintegrated the page. An arrow looped and snaked down the page to the very bottom, where it pointed to the small note she had left in Wybie's copy of the book. Squinting his eyes, he read her miniscule, brief lettering:

"It shouldn't read 'Robin'. I'm just not that into him.

PS: Learn to take a hint.

Love, Coraline."

"… And then when I picked the olive up I was like, awh hell no, I am not eating that… Wybie, are you listening?"

Wybie snapped back into reality, as the girls high-pitched, snarky voice prodded him from the receiver. He stared momentarily at her penmanship, and then cast his gaze to the photographs. Then remembered he was supposed to talk. "Uh… yeah, r-right. Tonight sounds awesome." Wybie bit his lip as the evil puberty monster yanked at his vocal chords, sending him just an octave higher.

Silence was on the other end for a moment, before Coraline cleared her throat. "And that's all I needed to hear. See you at seven?"

"Yup."

"Great." The phone crackled for a moment, as she placed it back in the cradle. Wybie listened to it beep for a moment, before pressing the big red button, and slinging his own phone down, flopping back onto his bed with a ridiculous grin spread across his face.

--

"Hah. I was wondering when you'd show up." Coraline strode over to her bedroom window and unhooked the latch, and let the cat slip inside. He sat tall and purring, staring up at her with an eased, withered expression. "Gosh, you're looking old," she mused, picking the animal up and scratching behind it behind its ears. Cat's brow furrowed momentarily, but it continued to purr nonetheless.

Coraline and the cat crossed the room to her bed, upon which they both curled up. Coraline crossed her legs and leaned against the wall, the cat settling down in her lap as she glanced about the place. Her favourite picture still stood on the bedside table, all her toys were neatly tucked away, and the sky outside had begun to break out in ferocious grey clouds. Her eyes wandered down to the cat, which was beginning to dose off. She continued to stroke it.

"I suppose now… now that she's gone you'll be going too…" she whispered. The cat's ear's pricked up, but it did not move. Coraline continued to ramble. "Everything's gonna be so different now… I mean, I have the power to change everything. I could choose not to publish me book, I could stay in Oregon my whole life… I wanted adventure, and I got it. But everything comes back to the same place. You know?"

Both Coraline and the cat let out a surprised yelp when Coraline's bedroom door swung open, to reveal a fuming Mel Jones, tapping her foot impatiently. The cat jumped off the bed, and slinked back out the window. Both Jones women watched it go, before returning their gaze back to each other. Mel Jones drew in a breath.

"I thought I told you to wash the dishes."

Coraline sighed, and rolled over to pick up a book on her bedside table. "I'm going to do them, I swear."

"That doesn't look like washing dishes," Mel said, striding over to where Coraline was sitting and pulling the book from her grasp. Coraline scowled. "I've asked nicely. Three hours ago. Now get downstairs and clean up or you're not coming to the video store. Hustle!"

Coraline unfolded herself, and pushed past her mother to thunder irritatingly down the stairs, making each thud more dramatic than the next. Finally, she pranced into the kitchen and begun to run the tap, until the water heated up and she thrust the plug in. Gazing out the window onto the garden, the glass becoming plastered with condensation, she spoke idly to herself.

"Here we go again."