The pale figures pulsed faintly; she could imagine that they were nothing more than afterimages, like the glow left by a bright light in your eyes, after the lights go out.
'It doth not hurt,' whispered one faint voice.
'She will take your life and all you are and all you care'st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She'll take your joy. And one day you'll awake and your heart and your soul will have gone. A husk you'll be, a wisp you'll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.'
'Hollow,' whispered the third voice. 'Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow.'
'You must flee,' sighed a voice, faintly.
'I don't think so,' said Coraline. 'I tried running away, and it didn't work. She just took my parents. Can you tell me how to get out of this room?'
'If we knew then we would tell you.'
'Poor things,' said Coraline to herself. She sat down. She took off her sweater and rolled it up and put it behind her head, as a pillow. 'She won't keep me in the dark for ever,' said Coraline. 'She brought me here to play games. 'Games and challenges,' the cat said. I'm not much of a challenge here in the dark.' She tried to get comfortable, twisting and bending herself to fit the cramped space behind the mirror. Her stomach rumbled. She ate her last apple, taking the tiniest bites, making it last as long as she could. When she had finished she was still hungry. Then an idea struck her, and she whispered, 'When she comes to let me out, why don't you three come with me?'
'We wish that we could,' they sighed to her, in their barely-there voices. 'But she has our hearts in her keeping. Now we belong to the dark and to the empty places. The light would shrivel us, and burn.'
'Oh,' said Coraline.
She closed her eyes, which made the darkness darker, and she rested her head on the rolled-up sweater, and she went to sleep. And as she fell asleep she thought she felt a ghost kiss her cheek, tenderly, and a small voice whisper into her ear, a voice so faint it was barely there at all, a gentle wispy nothing of a voice so hushed that Coraline could almost believe she was imagining it.
'Look through the stone,' it said to her. And then she slept.
8
The other mother looked healthier than before: there was a little blush to her cheeks, and her hair was wriggling like lazy snakes on a warm day. Her black-button eyes seemed as if they had been freshly polished.
She had pushed through the mirror as if she were walking through nothing more solid than water and had stared down at Coraline. Then she had opened the door with the little silver key. She picked Coraline up, just as Coraline's real mother had when Coraline was much younger, cradling the half-sleeping child as if she were a baby.
The other mother carried Coraline into the kitchen and put her down, very gently, upon the counter- top.
Coraline struggled to wake herself up, conscious only for the moment of having been cuddled and loved, and wanting more of it; then realising where she was, and who she was with.
'There, my sweet Coraline,' said her other mother. 'I came and fetched you out of the cupboard. You needed to be taught a lesson, but we temper our justice with mercy here, we love the sinner and we hate the sin. Now, if you will be a good child who loves her mother, be compliant and fair-spoken, you and I shall understand each other perfectly and we shall love each other perfectly as well.'
Coraline scratched the sleep-grit from her eyes.
'There were other children in there,' she said. 'Old ones, from a long time ago.'
'Were there?' said the other mother. She was bustling between the pans and the fridge, bringing out eggs and cheeses, butter and a slab of sliced pink bacon.
'Yes,' said Coraline. 'There were. I think you're planning to turn me into one of them. A dead shell.'
Her other mother smiled gently. With one hand she cracked the eggs into a bowl, with the other she whisked them and whirled them. Then she dropped a pat of butter into a frying pan, where it hissed and fizzled and spun as she sliced thin slices of cheese. She poured the melted butter and the cheese into the egg mixture, and whisked it some more.
'Now, I think you're being silly, dear,' said the other mother. 'I love you. I will always love you. Nobody sensible believes in ghosts anyway. That's because they're all such liars. Smell the lovely breakfast I'm making for you.' She poured the yellow mixture into the pan. 'Cheese omelette. Your favourite.'
Coraline's mouth watered. 'You like games,' she said. 'That's what I've been told.'
The other mother's black eyes flashed. 'Everybody likes games,' was all she said.
'Yes,' said Coraline. She climbed down from the counter and sat at the kitchen table.
The bacon was sizzling and spitting under the grill. It smelled wonderful.
'Wouldn't you be happier if you won me, fair and square?' asked Coraline.
'Possibly,' said the other mother. She had a show of unconcernedness, but her fingers twitched and drummed and she licked her lips with her scarlet tongue. 'What exactly are you offering?'
'Me,' said Coraline, and she gripped her knees under the table, to stop them from shaking. 'If I lose I'll stay here with you for ever and I'll let you love me. I'll be a most dutiful daughter. I'll eat your food, and play Happy Families. And I'll let you sew your buttons into my eyes.'
Her other mother stared at her, black buttons unblinking. 'That sounds very fine,' she said. 'And if you do not lose?'
'Then you let me go. You let everyone go-my real father and mother, the dead children, everyone you've trapped here.'
The other mother took the bacon from under the grill and put it on a plate. Then she slipped the cheese omelette from the pan on to the plate, flipping it as she did so, letting it fold itself into a perfect omelette shape.
She placed the breakfast plate in front of Coraline, along with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a mug of frothy hot chocolate.
'Yes,' she said. 'I think I like this game. But what kind of game shall it be? A riddle game? A test of knowledge? Or of skill?'
'An exploring game,' suggested Coraline. 'A finding-things game.'
'And what is it you think you should be finding in this hide-and-go-seek game, Coraline Jones?'
Coraline hesitated. Then, 'My parents,' said Coraline. 'And the souls of the children behind the mirror.'
The other mother smiled at this, triumphantly, and Coraline wondered if she had made the right choice. Still, it was too late to change her mind now.
'A deal,' said the other mother. 'Now eat up your breakfast, my sweet. Don't worry, it won't hurt you.'
Coraline stared at the breakfast, hating herself for giving in so easily; but she was starving.
'How do I know you'll keep your word?' asked Coraline.
'I swear it,' said the other mother. 'I swear it on my own mother's grave.'
'Does she have a grave?' asked Coraline.
'Oh yes,' said the other mother. 'I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.'
'Swear on something else. So I can trust you to keep your word.'
'My right hand,' said the other mother, holding it up. She waggled the long fingers slowly, displaying the claw-like nails. 'I swear on that.'
Coraline shrugged. 'Okay,' she said. 'It's a deal.'
She ate the breakfast, trying not to wolf it down. She was hungrier than she had thought.
As she ate, the other mother stared at her. It was hard to read expressions into those black-button eyes, but Coraline thought that her other mother looked hungry, too.
