Another Coraline
a fanfiction

Chapter 5

By the time she had dragged herself up the last few steps to the front porch, leaning heavily on her improvised crutch, Coraline wanted to throw the branch in the fireplace. She wanted her broken bones to stop aching. She wanted to curl up and sleep for a week, and never think about anything dark or dirty or horrible with too many legs again.

The front door was unlocked and hanging open, swinging slightly in the night breeze. Coraline sniffed once, made a few swipes at her cheeks with her filthy pajama cuff, and sank down by the umbrella stand.

The cat leaped up the steps and trotted around her, looking at her with calm blue eyes.

"What am I supposed to do?" she mumbled. Her head felt clogged with tears and pain.

The cat blinked, then turned and squeezed through the open door. Coraline watched its skinny tail vanish with a flick.

A few minutes later, it was back, dragging a tea towel. It draped it across her leg and sat back on its haunches, watching her.

Coraline stared at the towel's familiar cotton print. She'd used this one, or another like it, to help her father dry the dishes just a few days ago. The sunny memory of joking and passing wet plates back and forth in the kitchen warmed her a little, and the thought of the kitchen made her withered stomach grumble.

"Right," she said, and picked up the towel. After some struggle, tearing at the edge of it with her teeth, the old cotton gave. She got a good hold on two corners and ripped it cleanly down the middle, then reached for one of the walking sticks in the umbrella stand. Splinting bones hadn't been covered in their first aid unit in health class, but anything had to be better than trying to walk on an unsupported broken leg.

She couldn't stay on the porch forever. Not while Wybie was waiting.

Pulling the knots tight on the towel made her see stars, but she managed, somehow, and got to her feet with care. The makeshift splint held her broken bones steady, and another old walking stick from the umbrella stand made for a better crutch than the poor branch.

Carefully, she hobbled her way into the kitchen, not bothering to switch on the lights. Her insides felt quivery and tied in knots, but she still wanted something like food. It seemed like a bad idea to face an ancient evil on an empty stomach.

The cat followed at her heels as she poured herself a glass of milk, but had the sense not to try to weave its body around her legs. She poured a little milk into an old plastic yogurt lid and put it on the table. The cat eagerly leapt up and began to lap at it.

Coraline sank into a chair with a sigh and sipped her own milk. She'd never been quite so grateful for a drink; she'd been as thirsty as she'd been hungry, and finally having something in her stomach was energizing. She sat up a little straighter, ignoring her aches as best she could.

"Think, think," she muttered, staring into the contents of her glass.

The thing that had taken Wybie was familiar. It had looked like...her. Their old enemy. But when Coraline forced herself to remember her fleeting glimpses of it, there were dozens of differences. She thought this beldam had seemed smaller than the one she remembered, though it was hard to be sure. Its blackened shell glinted deep green, like old glass on the seashore, and its face was rounder, less harsh. They were both bony and dreadful, but where the creature she'd faced long ago had been a horrible parody of an old woman, this one reminded her more of a malnourished child. The only identical point she could remember was their hands.

She knew a monster when she saw one. But this one was new.

"What does a beldam do?" Coraline asked the dark kitchen, thinking aloud, then answered her own question immediately. "She lures people away. How does she lure them away? She pretends to be what she thinks they want."

Coraline paused, and swallowed a gulp of milk, wrestling with the implications of that. "How does she know what you want?" she asked, and thought back to the blackening, curling fabric of an old doll in the fireplace grate.

"She listens," she murmured, and shivered. How many years had that thing been down there in the dark and the wet, growing, waiting?

"What does a beldam want?"

The cat sat up on its scrawny haunches and gave her a patient look. Coraline felt a jolt of cold in the pit of her stomach as she remembered a long-ago conversation.

"Something to love," she whispered, "and something to eat. Oh, Wybie…"

Her fingers curled tightly around the cup. She shut her eyes, feeling terribly small, and terribly lost among the shadows of the kitchen. If it hadn't been Wybie, it would have been someone else. It would be someone else, eventually. Maybe even the Little B, she realized, with a fresh surge of dread. There was no doubt in her mind where her friend had been taken. No child was safe in the Pink Palace, now.

Quietly, the cat bent its head and began lapping at its milk again. It seemed to think she just needed some good solid ignoring until she got her common sense screwed back in. Coraline blinked at the everyday sound, and lifted her chin.

She thought, hard, sifting over rotting cloth and silver needles in her mind.

How long had this beldam been waiting?

Not as long as the last one. Not by a long shot.

"I'm going after them," she said to the cat and the waiting shadows.

The cat looked up, milk dripping from its whiskers, and gave a quizzical prrow?

"Well," said Coraline, shrugging the shoulder that hurt the least. "I have to. He's not getting himself out, is he?"

The cat made a sound almost like a human laugh. Coraline cracked a smile, and reached for the cane again.

She was out of the well and back on her feet. It was time for this beldam to find out just who it was dealing with.

Preparation, Coraline remembered, was key. She would have liked another finding-stone or a heavier stick or even her old academy cap, but the cap was gone, the cane was as heavy a stick as she felt capable of wielding, and the Misses' stone had been in ashes for seven years.

Instead, she washed her face and hands at the kitchen sink. By the time she'd finished rinsing away the caked grime with plenty of hot water and soap, she felt reborn. Even her leg seemed to hurt a little less when the washrag finally squeaked over clean skin.

Another dishtowel, torn in half, to reinforce her makeshift splint. A quick rummage through the kitchen cupboards to find the old clasp knife her father used to get the corks out of wine bottles; she tucked it into the pocket of her pajamas. A last swig of milk.

Carefully, Coraline combed her fingers through her short, tangled hair and pulled it back with an elastic. She squared her shoulders, and faced the door to the hallway.

"Ready?" she said, not taking her eyes from the living room door.

The cat trotted up next to her, looking at her with vast, uneasy feline eyes.

Coraline wrinkled her nose. "Well, I am," she said, and hobbled resolutely down the hall.

The door to the living room was open a crack. Coraline nudged it a little further open and peered through. The room was dark and empty. Patches of moonlight from the windows lay across the carpet.

Slowly, she pushed open the door and limped inside, looking left and right.

And there it was. The little door.

Coraline shivered. For seven years she'd lived around it, walked past it, shared a house with it, but she'd never gotten quite comfortable with it. And that was when she thought she'd never have to crawl through it again.

Clumsily, she knelt in front of it. Her leg twinged horribly as she settled herself. For a moment, Coraline wondered if this was a fool's errand. She had no help, few weapons, and only the shadow of a plan. She couldn't even decide her own future; how was she going to save someone else's?

Something caught her eye: something black. She bent and pulled it loose from the keyhole, turning it over in the palm of her hand. There was only one key like this, button-handled and still shiny with perfect black paint after seven years at the bottom of a well. A little rotted string still clung to one of the holes in the button.

"The key," she whispered. "She left the key. She forgot it in the door."

A light kindled in her eyes. The plan she'd built on guesswork suddenly had a fighting chance. Coraline shoved the key into her sock for safekeeping, then glanced over her shoulder. The cat was still lingering in the hallway.

"Not coming?" she said.

The cat shook itself nose to tail until its ears flapped, as if it couldn't believe its own recklessness, then trotted across the floor. Coraline gently scratched its head.

"Good kitty," she said, and turned back to the door, curling her fingers under the edge of it. She took a deep breath. "Wish me luck," she said, and pulled it open.

A soft flutter of stale air blew her hair gently around her face. Coraline squinted inside, then gasped as her vision adjusted.

The tunnel unfurled before her eyes, stretching away into the distance…but it was not as she remembered it. There were no bright colors anymore, no scattered toys or fragments of sewing needles. The walls were dusty brown and tattered, like the dead skin of something left out to dry, plastered with cobwebs. The torn, wispy edges moved softly in the wake of the tunnel's opening. They reminded her of so many beckoning hands.

Coraline swallowed hard, and crawled through the door.

The cat bounded in after her, picking its paws up gingerly. Scraps of cobweb floated from its claws with every step. Coraline made a face that was half pain, half disgust at the dirt and clots of grayish webbing she could feel catching in her hair. Either the tunnel had collapsed somewhat over the years, or she had gotten bigger than she'd realized. It was probably a little of both.

"You know, most humans manage to improve their grasp of common sense in seven years' time."

The voice was dry, cool, and deeply familiar. Coraline jumped, startled. A smile spread across her face.

"And most cats age," she shot back, peering through the dim light at her companion.

"Is there any point in pointing out the trap you're revisiting?" it asked, narrowing its blue eyes up at her. "I couldn't stop you before."

"No," Coraline admitted, as calmly as she could with her heart pounding in her ears. The floor felt like stretched, ancient leather under her fingertips. It seemed on the verge of bursting with her weight. She shuddered, wondering what lay outside, and kept crawling, trying not to forget about the cool metal of the key, tucked in her sock like a talisman. "But I do have one major advantage this time."

"And what, pray tell, is that?" the cat asked.

Coraline grinned, mirthlessly. "I've done this before," she said. "And she hasn't."

The cat considered that. "Fair," it admitted. "But if you were planning on playing cat-apult again, you're in for a disappointment. There's nowhere left over there for a cat to go."

She laughed. "I think I'll be okay on my own."

"If you say so," it said, sounding a little doubtful.

And then they were at the other end. The little door's twin waited.

"Well, thanks for coming this far," Coraline said, "but I think this is my stop." The cat switched its tail, watching her.

Solemnly, her resolve set, she reached out and gave the door a push. It swung open with a soft, drawn-out creak. Grabbing the frame with both hands, she grunted and pulled herself through into the other world, braced for anything—

And found herself nose to nose with a leering, chalk-white skull.

Coraline shrieked and struck out with her cane, slamming it into the thing's face. There was a hollow popping sound and a series of cracks and creaks, and it collapsed, burying her in its brittle embrace as she screamed and battered at it with both arms.

With a desperate shove, she wrestled the mass of broken, age-whitened chitin off her and managed to sit up, gasping. The little door had been thrown shut behind her in the struggle, and the cat was nowhere to be seen; the cracked skull lay rocking gently at her feet. The shape of it was terribly familiar. She covered her mouth with her hand.

"That's not a skeleton," she whispered. The withered, empty corpse, stretched out on the floor, had only one metallic hand; there were deep, ragged clawmarks in the wood on this side of the door. "It's a husk." Coraline gulped. How long did it take a beldam to starve to death?

A faint, plaintive sound caught her ear. Coraline turned to look for the source…and found herself in a room transformed.

She remembered the other Palace, with its cheery paint and homey furnishings, and the other living room, deteriorating and fallen. If she squinted, she could make out a few hints that this place had once been a living room, but only a few fragmented memories of wallpaper and baseboard remained.

The rest was white, endless spiraling streamers of white, like a frozen cyclone, or the inside of a cotton candy machine. White ropy stuff plastered, patched, and became the walls, leaping at sharp angles from plane to plane. There was no up or down to the design of it all, no rhyme or reason. It was a child's scribble of a lair, and it made Coraline's head spin to try and follow the lines of it.

But here and there, gummed among the strands, were…things.

Coraline got cautiously to her feet, stepping over the bones of her old adversary and staring around in confusion. A shiny new dirt bike lay on its side, half-draped in white webbing, and beside it was another, and another, each one a different bright color. Food spilled from gaps in the cocooned walls and piled on the floor in drifts: puffed snacks, cans of cola, brilliant green-frosted toaster tarts. Half a dozen digital cameras hung from a strand of greasy web overhead, like strange metallic fruit; video game disks littered the floor…

"Hello?" Coraline called, her eyes flicking from one spot of color to the next. It was a massive jumble sale of everything a teenaged boy might love, clumsily thrown into being. "Um. Hello?"

Another muffled sound caught her ear. Coraline whirled around, raising her stick to defend herself, but nothing approached. She strained her ears, listening, and heard it again—a strangled whimper, very faint and very miserable.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, looking right and left—and then, from behind a dangling loop of white cord, she saw a tiny movement.

The fingertips of an unmistakable black glove, protruding from the wall.

"Oh, god," Coraline whispered.

There was a soft rustling and clicking from high above and behind her. She turned slowly, knowing all too well what she was going to see.

Jet-black limbs delicately parted the strands of the cocoon overhead, and the many-legged nightmare body of what had been the other Coraline heaved itself through to cling upside-down to the ceiling, glaring at her with its dark hair hanging around its pale face.

"You," said the other Coraline.

"Me," the real Coraline agreed, and planted her feet stubbornly on the sticky floor.

There was a sharp pause.

"You would have to show up with an eye to spoiling everything, wouldn't you," the creature said, and clicked away across the ceiling, its long legs rippling like tapping fingers. It pursed its thin lips. "Always ruining everybody's games. I know the story. I've been listening in, you know."

Coraline, standing her ground, crossed her arms and said nothing. I'm not your prey, she thought, trying to glare back, to be like stone. Do you even know what to do with what isn't prey?

The other Coraline scuttled down the wall, stepping carefully over the gloved fingertips. It reached the floor and paused. Its hair had fallen across its face, and the button eyes glared through the dark strands.

"You are so selfish," it said. "You don't even want this place, not really. You're leaving it behind, aren't you? Throwing it all away."

A nasty knot rose in Coraline's throat. It was the same horrible question that had been eating at her all this time…

And yet here she was, fighting with all her heart for everything she'd assumed she was about to lose. Her friends. Her home. She loved them all, and they were hers—no matter what.

Coraline swallowed the lump in her throat, and squared her shoulders.

The beldam scowled. "Can't you let me have just one little thing of yours? Waste not, want not. You won't even miss him." Its voice was wheedling, hopeful, but mostly hungry. "I'll look after him—see?" It gestured to the wall behind her, and the gloved fingertips twitched once, grasping at the air.

"—lp!" The cry was strangled behind layers of silk.

I'm sorry, Wybie, Coraline thought, desperately. Forgive me. I'm so sorry.

She took a breath for luck, then twisted her face into a picture of disgust.

"Wait," she said. "You think I came here for him? Why should I care what happens to him?"

The beldam stared. "He…he is your friend," it said, tentatively.

"Some friend. He's useless," Coraline said, with a little roll of her eyes. "And he's a total baby. Who still goes digging for slugs at nineteen?"

"He got you out of the well," the beldam pointed out, softly, feeling the net for holes.

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna need him for that again," Coraline said, as harshly as she could. There was a terrible silence from within the wall; the fingers weren't moving anymore. "He was just someone to talk to—and not much good for that, either, seeing as how he never shuts up."

She leaned on the words, hoping the old friendly jibe would jog Wybie's memory. She didn't dare give him a clearer clue that something was afoot. The beldam was watching her with unblinking black eyes.

Coraline forged ahead, feeling sick to her stomach. "It's like you said. I'm leaving anyway. Why should I care?"

The beldam tapped its fingernails against its bony upper arms. "But you're here," it pointed out, sounding half suspicious, half confused.

"You threw me down a well," Coraline snapped, and the rage that boiled in the words was quite real. "You left me to die!" She gestured around them at the strange, jumbled heaps of gifts. "And now you're down here, spoiling him rotten with all of this, and you expect me to just go away and leave you alone?"

Her erstwhile doppleganger's mouth had dropped open, exposing very white teeth. It backed away slightly in the face of Coraline's tirade, on hesitant spidery tiptoe. Coraline pressed the advantage, taking a step forward and angrily jerking her thumb at her own chest with every accusation.

"I'm filthy! I'm exhausted! I'm starving! My leg is broken, and I think you did one of my ribs, too—"

"I don't want you here!" The beldam interrupted her in a thin wheedling whine, hunching its shoulders and ducking it chin. In that moment, even as horrible as it was, it reminded Coraline of nothing so much as a sulky child. "Why can't you just go away?"

Now or never.

"Oh, I'll go," Coraline declared, and spread her arms to indicate the heaps of gifts that cluttered the room. "Just gimme some loot of my own, and I'll go away and leave you alone. Forever."

A panicked cry emerged from somewhere deep in the woven wall.

"You are selfish," the beldam marveled, delighted.

Coraline smirked. "Guilty as charged."

The beldam tapped one curved needletip lightly against its button eye. "And what do you want? Food? Games? A dirt bike?"

"How about as much of this as I can carry?" Coraline gestured, sweeping the room with one arm.

For a moment, suspicion clouded the beldam's cracked, bony face. Then it tilted its head at her broken leg, and sneered.

"Fine," it said. "Just take what you want and go."

"As much as I can carry?"

"Yes, yes," the creature snapped, impatient. "As much as you can carry."

"You swear it?" Coraline asked, extending a hand as if to shake. "You have to keep your word, you know."

The beldam rolled its eyes. "I swear it on my mother's left hand," it said, and held up one arm, flexing the needle-sharp digits with a cacophony of metallic clicks and chimes. "Now, hurry up and pick what you want!"

Calmly, Coraline pointed at the trapped, gloved hand.

"I want him," she said.

The beldam's smile froze. Its blank eyes bored into Coraline, who held her hand steady, refusing to let her pointing finger waver.

See what it feels like to fall into somebody else's web, she thought.

A sharp crack broke the silence, as the beldam rolled its head on its bony neck, as if shaking out a kink. Its button gaze swept over Coraline's trussed and aching leg once more, and it began to laugh.

"This is your plan?" it said. "Really? You must be joking, little girl."

"I'm older than you," Coraline snapped. She edged around the creature, slowly, giving it a wide berth and careful not to take her eyes off it, and plunged her hand into the tangled, angular strands, grasping Wybie's wrist. "C'mon, Wybourne," she muttered, set her teeth, and pulled.

There was a twanging of broken strings, as if someone had sat on a guitar, but the rest of Wybie's hand and arm emerged. Coraline braced herself, grabbed his arm in both hands and yanked again.

"Oww!" Wybie cried, as soon as his face was mostly out of the wall. A handful of persistent, sticky strands were still gummed around his limbs and stuck in his curly hair, refusing to let him go. "Geez, Jonesy, could you be a little gentle?"

Ignoring him for the moment, Coraline fished in her pocket for her father's clasp knife and began sawing at the strands. The beldam circled, hovering and watching, its hands quietly wringing and clicking against each other; but it made no move for now.

The last strands securing Wybie's arms snapped, and he began gingerly pulling sticky webbing out of his hair, wincing with each tug as Coraline set to work on his legs.

"Are you crazy?" he hissed, trying not to move his lips. The beldam's gaze pressed down oppressively on them both. "You can't carry me out of here! I barely got you out of the well, and I weigh a lot more than you do, and my leg wasn't broken—"

Quickly, Coraline finished off the last few strands and struggled back to her feet, reaching around him to slash at the last remnants of webbing that clung to his back. This close, she could feel his whole body trembling on the verge of a scream. "Shh," she whispered. "It's gonna be okay."

"And even if you do get us out, no way is she letting us go!" Wybie's whisper was high and nervous in her ear, almost hysterical. "Oh, god, my grandma's never gonna know what happened to me…"

The last strand snapped. Coraline folded the sticky knife, dropping it in her pocket. She cradled her friend's face in her hands and briefly pressed her forehead to his. His eyes were panicky. "She's just a baby, Wybie," she whispered. "She's not very smart yet—she left the key in the door. When we get that far, we can lock her in."

"If we get that far," Wybie muttered.

"You're going to have to trust me—"

"Enough whispering!" the beldam snapped. Circling around, it blocked the door with its body for a moment, and then reluctantly stepped aside, clearing the way for them to pass. Its footsteps crunched among the remains of the old beldam, and it crouched low over them, like a newly-molted insect rising from its shell. "If you're going to take him, then take him," it said. "And if he drags himself one inch…"

"I know, I know," Coraline said, and turned her back on her friend, pulling his arms over her shoulders. "Wybie, hold on tight and whatever you do, don't move a muscle. You have to let me carry you."

Wybie gulped. "You can't even walk!"

"I don't have to walk," Coraline said, facing the tiny door. She dropped her cane with a clatter, and knelt, planting her hands on the floor. Her knees took their combined weight without trouble, and she grinned fiercely. "I can crawl."

The beldam hesitated, then started to laugh again. Coraline knew they looked ridiculous, but it didn't matter. If it worked, it worked.

As skinny as he was, Wybie was still a dead weight, and her leg hurt more with every lurching inch of gained ground. Still. Coraline took a deep breath, and lunged forward, throwing all her flagging energy into the struggle, digging her fingers into the sticky mesh of the floor and dragging them both across it as fast as she could. The beldam's laughter faded into an ominous silence.

Wybie's steel-toed boots bounced and slid along behind them, his leggy frame dwarfing hers; she felt him clutching her shoulders, trying not to slide off her back, and gritted her teeth. They were almost to the door…

And then her fingers were gripping the doorframe, and she hauled them through into the battered tunnel, nearly losing her balance as it dipped and swayed under them. Outside the door, the beldam snarled with rage.

Coraline squeezed her eyes shut and kept crawling, bracing herself against the tunnel walls. There was a wild scrabbling of legs behind them, and she felt Wybie's arms tightening around her neck—and then the tunnel itself jerked under her, and she shrieked, tumbling forward and landing hard on her face.

"Crawl, little girl!" The tunnel jerked again and again—the beldam had grabbed the aging framework in both hands and was shaking it wildly. Creaks and groans pierced the air, and little noises like shears through old cloth. Coraline pitched onto her side, struggling to get back to her hands and knees with Wybie clinging to her neck, both of them helpless and rolling in the bucking passageway.

"Oh, god, oh, god," Coraline gasped, watching the thin slice of light up ahead with desperate eyes. She grabbed a handful of what she was pretty sure was wall and dragged herself back onto her stomach for a moment, then kicked out with the wrong leg and screamed, crumpling into an agonized ball. Wybie lost his grip and rolled away with a howl of fright.

"Why aren't you crawling?" came the beldam's shout, mocking, triumphant.

"Wybie!" Coraline shouted, groping for him in the confusion. Dust filled the air; she coughed and spluttered, and wiped at her streaming eyes with her pajama sleeve. "Don't m-move!"

A hand grabbed at her arm. "Just go!" Wybie pleaded; she could see him now, even in the dusty air, nearly nose to nose. "She doesn't want you! Go, now!"

Somewhere in the bitterest depths of Coraline's heart, a boy's hand blew away into nothing.

"No!" she shouted back, tears and dust making muddy tracks on her face. "Dammit, Wybie, don't move!"

Wrenching herself over onto her back, she grabbed him under his skinny shoulders and heaved with all her strength, scooting and squirming along on her backside and dragging him along with her like an unwieldy parcel as the tunnel bucked and heaved around them.

Back through the dust clouds and flying scraps of cobweb, she caught a glimpse of the beldam, all of its long limbs dug deep into the walls, its head thrown back in hysterical laughter as it battered the passageway back and forth. Long rips were opening in the fabric of the tunnel, and white nothing shone beyond them. Coraline shuddered and shut her eyes again, pushing hard with her good leg, her arms full of gangly terrified boy—

"You can't get away from me!" cried the beldam, half laughing, half weeping. "I'll follow you anywhere, you hateful selfish girl, I'll come for what's mine—"

And then Coraline looked up and the door was there, swinging with the motion of the tunnel. "Wybie!" she cried, and reached down to fumble in her sock for the key. For a dreadful moment, her fingers slipped, and she had a premonition of the precious object spinning away into empty white space.

But her fingers closed tightly around the iron key, and she breathed a sigh of relief and passed it into Wybie's fingers. "Get it in the door!" she shouted, hoping he could hear her over the racket. "Put it in the lock and then pull me through!"

Wybie's eyes met hers, and he nodded, pulling his knees up to his chest. She cupped her hands around one of his clunky great boots and heaved, and he tumbled out onto the wooden floor of the living room with a squawk and a clatter.

A scream of pure fury exploded from the other end of the tunnel, and Coraline glanced back. The beldam's eyes were fixed on the key in Wybie's hand, and she swarmed up the tunnel in a screaming nightmare of clicking black legs.

"You!" she howled. "You tricked me, you tricked me—"

The tunnel strained for a moment under her flailing weight, then gave up the ghost at last. The middle of it dropped several feet with a crack like a breaking spine, and twisted, splitting and opening up with a terrible drawn-out ripping sound.

The beldam wailed like a panicky baby, clutching and tearing at the fragmenting cloth as it fell out from under her, trying to claw her way back to her own world. There was a hollow sucking and a sound of high wind, and the other door vanished, spinning away; and then the last of the fabric slipped through those sharp silvery fingers, and the beldam gave a last shriek and whirled away after it, away and away into the white nothing.

Cobweb tatters and a few scraps of wood were all that remained of the tunnel, flapping in the vacuum. Coraline hung on tight, but she felt herself starting to slip down the sudden incline. One of her slippers came loose from her kicking foot and was sucked away in a blink…

"Gotcha!" someone shouted. Warm fingers closed around her hands and yanked her up over the doorsill to safety.

Coraline hit the hardwood planks with a gasp like a landed fish. The little door slammed shut behind her, and the roar of the wind fell instantly silent. She rolled over, dazed, and Wybie lunged for the keyhole, fumbling with the key.

It turned in the lock with a soft, final click. And then, before his astonished eyes, it crumbled to pale dust, so fine that it blew away into thin air.

For a long time, Coraline lay exhausted, breathing in gasps and waiting for her vision to stop spinning. The floor was blessedly solid under her back. If her leg hurt, she couldn't tell anymore; she felt like soup without a bowl, running every which way.

A worried face swam into sight.

"Hey," said Wybie.

"Hey," Coraline managed. She felt a little more solid, looking up at him. Reaching out, she touched his cheek. His skin was warm and real, and she laughed a little, a bubble of joy and relief rising.

"You came after me," he said, sounding somewhat amazed.

"Oh, come on, like I was gonna let her have you," Coraline scoffed. "What do you take me for, Wybourne Lovat?"

"I dunno," Wybie said. "I'm just somebody to talk to."

Coraline stared at him. He stared back, with something hesitant and fragile in his eyes. She gulped.

"You…you thought I meant that?" she said.

"Did you?" he asked.

"Oh, Wybie," she said, lost for words, and sat up and pulled him close, hugging him tightly. He made a startled noise, but then she felt his arms wrap around her. His hands were awkward on her back—he didn't seem to know quite where to put them—and his hair tickled her nose.

"I'm sorry I didn't find you faster," he mumbled. "I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay," Coraline said. "I know you tried."

For a long moment, she just held him, listening to their breathing as it slowed back to normal. The house creaked gently, the small sleepy sounds of old carpentry settling. Early dawn light seeped through the curtains, turning everything a watery blue.

Finally, Wybie drew back to look at her in the pale light. "Thanks," he said. He looked a little sheepish. "For coming. You didn't have to."

Coraline smiled. "I dunno," she said. "I'm starting to reconsider a little, here. I mean, I could have had a dirt bike…"

"You're horrible," Wybie said, grinning at her.

"I know," Coraline said, grinning back. "I couldn't just leave you, though." She swallowed, realizing the truth of what she was saying as she said it, and feeling stronger with every word. "You know, I'm not leaving anything. Not really. It's not like I'm dying or something. And there's vacations, and Christmas, and…and it's just a few years. And I've got so much stuff to do out there."

Wybie swallowed. "I know." His grin had faded; he looked awfully lonely again.

"Oh, c'mon," she said, rolling her eyes. "Like I could ever really get away from this place, with its horrible weather, and those horrible beets in the garden, and Dad's horrible cooking, and…" She paused. "And you."

"Geez, thanks, Jonesy," he groaned. She punched him gently on the arm.

"You know what I mean. I'd miss you too much."

He frowned at her, rubbing his arm ruefully. "Well, at least you wouldn't have to put up with all the talking." In that moment he was so himself, sheepish shy looks and bad posture and every inch of him so completely him and safe at last, that she could almost have cried.

"Wybie, without you I wouldn't have anybody to talk to at all," she said, blinking back sudden tears. It wasn't quite true, but in a way it was the truest thing she'd said all day; and she realized with a glimmer of surprise that if she didn't start to cry or otherwise stop herself right now, she was quite probably going to kiss him.

At the same moment, Wybie seemed to realize the same thing. His eyes widened. They looked almost green in the soft morning light.

Outside, there came the faint sound of a car trundling down the driveway, and the moment broke.

Wybie coughed, awkwardly. "Your parents are home," he pointed out.

Coraline nodded. "Yeah."

"They're gonna pitch a fit."

"Probably," she admitted, hoping the fit would involve calling a doctor. Now that the soupy, lost feeling was fading, her leg was not happy about everything she'd put it through.

Car doors slammed outside, and footsteps echoed on the porch.

"The door's open!"

"What on earth—"

"Oh, most happy hour!"

"Charlie, do you think—"

Coraline's heart leapt. She hadn't felt so glad to hear her parents' and her neighbors' voices in years. The chatter swelled in the kitchen where she'd left her sweater and her one remaining boot, excited exclamations tumbling over each other.

The hallway light flicked on, and long shadows crisscrossed the hall carpet. In moments, it would all spill over into the living room, and she had no idea how long the fuss would go on.

Coraline took a deep breath, grabbed a handful of Wybie's hoodie to pull him close enough, and planted a kiss on his cheek. Her heart pounded in her ears.

"Coraline? Are you there?"

She quickly let go and drew back. Wybie looked flabbergasted, but there was a slightly foolish grin on his face. Perfect. Thoroughly pleased with herself, Coraline took a deep breath.

"I'm in here, Mom!" she cried.

The uproar in the kitchen kicked up a notch, and a wave of grownups burst into the room, crying, laughing, scolding, talking, shunting Wybie aside as they exclaimed over the state of her clothes and her hair and oh, Coraline, your poor leg—

"I'm okay," she cried. "It's okay, I'm home…"

Bustle and delight surged around them. Her father was dialing something on his cell phone, squinting at it through tears. The Misses Spink and Forcible bustled about looking for washrags and hot water. The usually formidable Mrs. Bobinsky clung to her husband and rattled off what sounded like a grateful prayer in Russian.

Wrapped in her mother's arms, Coraline rested her chin on her shoulder and sighed happily. A movement by the window caught her eye, and she spotted the cat, seated on the windowsill like a small leftover shadow against the dawning sky. She caught its eye, and winked. It blinked slowly, a grave congratulation; washed one paw across its nose, then leapt off the sill and out of sight.

"Oh, Coraline," her mother said, tearfully, rocking her like a little girl. "Oh, sweetheart."

"I'm okay, Mom," she whispered. "It's gonna be okay."

And she knew in her heart, finally, that it was true.