The cat said nothing.
‘Come on, cat,’ said Coraline. She took a step back towards the steps, but the cat stayed where it was, looking miserable and, oddly, much smaller.
‘If the only way out is past her,’ said Coraline, ‘then that’s the way we’re going to go.’ She went back to the cat, bent down and picked it up. The cat did not resist. It simply trembled. She supported its bottom with one hand and rested its front legs on her shoulder. The cat was heavy, but not too heavy to carry. It licked at the palm of her hand, where the blood from the scrape was welling up.
Coraline walked up the steps one at a time, heading back to her own flat. She was aware of the marbles clicking in her pocket, aware of the stone with the hole in it, aware of the cat pressing itself against her.
She got to her front door – now just a small-child’s scrawl of a door – and she pushed her hand against it, half expecting that her hand would rip through it, revealing nothing behind it but blackness and a scattering of stars.
But the door swung open, and Coraline went through.
Her hair writhed and twined about her head, and her teeth were sharp as knives . . .
Chapter 11
Once inside, in her flat, or rather, in the flat that was not hers, Coraline was pleased to see that it had not transformed into the empty drawing that the rest of the house seemed to have become. It had depth and shadows, and someone who stood in the shadows waiting for Coraline to return.
‘So you’re back,’ said the other mother. She did not sound pleased. ‘And you brought vermin with you.’
‘No,’ said Coraline. ‘I brought a friend.’ She could feel the cat stiffening under her hands, as if it were anxious to be away. Coraline wanted to hold on to it like a teddy bear, for reassurance, but she knew that cats hate to be squeezed, and she suspected that frightened cats were liable to bite and scratch if provoked in any way, even if they were on your side.
‘You know I love you,’ said the other mother, flatly.
‘You have a very funny way of showing it,’ said Coraline. She walked down the hallway, then turned into the drawing room, steady step by steady step, pretending that she could not feel the other mother’s blank black eyes on her back. Her grandmother’s formal furniture was still there, and the painting on the wall of the strange fruit (but now the fruit in the painting had been eaten, and all that remained in the bowl was the browning core of an apple, several plum and peach stones, and the stem of what had formerly been a bunch of grapes). The lion-pawed table raked the carpet with its clawed wooden feet, as if it were impatient for something. At the end of the room, in the corner, stood the wooden door, which had once, in another place, opened on to a plain brick wall. Coraline tried not to stare at it. The window showed nothing but mist.
This was it, Coraline knew. The moment of truth. The unravelling time.
The other mother had followed her in. Now she stood in the centre of the room, between Coraline and the mantelpiece, and looked down at Coraline with black-button eyes. It was funny, Coraline thought. The other mother did not look anything at all like her own mother. She wondered how she had ever been deceived into imagining a resemblance. The other mother was huge – her head almost brushed the ceiling of the room – and very pale, the colour of a spider’s belly. Her hair writhed and twined about her head, and her teeth were sharp as knives . . .
‘Well?’ said the other mother, sharply. ‘Where are they?’
Coraline leaned against an armchair, adjusted the cat with her left hand, put her right hand into her pocket, and pulled out the three glass marbles. They were a frosted grey, and they clinked together in the palm of her hand. The other mother reached her white fingers out for them, but Coraline slipped them back into her pocket. She knew it was true, then. The other mother had no intention of letting her go, or of keeping her word. It had been an entertainment, and nothing more. ‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘We aren’t finished yet, are we?’
The other mother looked daggers, but she smiled sweetly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I suppose not. After all, you still need to find your parents, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Coraline. I must not look at the mantelpiece, she thought. I must not even think about it.
‘Well?’ said the other mother. ‘Produce them. Would you like to look in the cellar again? I have some other interesting things hidden down there, you know.’
‘No,’ said Coraline. ‘I know where my parents are.’ The cat was heavy in her arms. She moved it forward, unhooking its claws from her shoulder as she did so.
‘Where?’
‘It stands to reason,’ said Coraline. ‘I’ve looked everywhere you’d hide them. They aren’t in the house.’
The other mother stood very still, giving nothing away, lips tightly closed. She might have been a wax statue. Even her hair had stopped moving.
‘So,’ Coraline continued, both hands wrapped firmly around the black cat, ‘I know where they have to be. You’ve hidden them in the passageway between the houses, haven’t you? They are behind that door.’ She nodded her head towards the door in the corner.
The other mother remained statue-still, but a hint of a smile crept back on to her face. ‘Oh, they are, are they?’
‘Why don’t you open it?’ said Coraline. ‘They’ll be there, all right.’
It was her only way home, she knew. But it all depended on the other mother needing to gloat, needing not only to win but to show that she had won.
The other mother reached her hand slowly into her apron pocket and produced the black iron key. The cat stirred uncomfortably in Coraline’s arms, as if it wanted to get down. Just stay there for a few moments longer, she thought at it, wondering if it could hear her. I’ll get us both home. I said I would. I promise. She felt the cat relax ever-so-slightly in her arms.
The other mother walked over to the door and pushed the key into the lock.
She turned the key.
Coraline heard the mechanism clunk heavily. She was already starting, as quietly as she could, step by step, to back away towards the mantelpiece.
The other mother pushed down on the door handle and pulled open the door, revealing a corridor behind it, dark and empty. ‘There,’ she said, waving her hands at the corridor. The expression of delight on her face was a very bad thing to see. ‘You’re wrong! You don’t know where your parents are, do you? They aren’t there.’ She turned and looked at Coraline. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘you’re going to stay here for ever and always.’
‘No,’ said Coraline. ‘I’m not.’ And, hard as she could, she threw the black cat towards the other mother. It yowled and landed on the other mother’s head, claws flailing, teeth bared, fierce and angry. Fur on end, it looked half again as big as it was in real life.
Without waiting to see what would happen, Coraline reached up to the mantelpiece, closed her hand around the snow-globe, then pushed it deep into the pocket of her dressing gown.
The cat made a deep, ululating yowl and sank its teeth into the other mother’s cheek. She was flailing at it. Blood ran from the cuts on her white face – not red blood, but a deep, tarry black stuff. Coraline ran for the door.