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.

She stopped talking. ‘There’s a but, isn’t there?’ said Coraline. ‘I can feel it. Like a rain cloud.’

said. ‘I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?’

Coraline had time to observe that the house itself was continuing to change, becoming less distinct, and flattening out, even as she raced down the stairs. It reminded her of a photograph of a house now, not the thing itself.

even if it meant wearing the other Coraline’s clothes. (Was there an other Coraline? No, she decided, there wasn’t. There was just her.)

‘What if it was dinnertime?’ asked Coraline. ‘Wouldn’t you want to be called then?’ ‘Of course,’ said the cat. ‘But a simple cry of ‘Dinner!’ would do nicely. See? No need for names.’

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.

the stone with the hole in it.

The house had flattened out even more. It no longer looked like a photograph – more like a drawing, a crude, charcoal scribble of a house drawn on grey paper.