Neil Gaiman

"Made it, found it, what's the difference?" asked the cat. "Either way, she's had it a very long time. Hang on-" and it gave a shiver and a leap and before Coraline could blink the cat was sitting with its paw holding down a big black rat. "It's not that I like rats at the best of times," said the cat conversationally, as if nothing had happened, "but the rats in this place are all spies for her. She uses them as her eyes and hands…" and with that the cat let the rat go.

It ran for almost a metre and then the cat, with one bound, was upon it, batting it hard with one sharp-clawed paw while holding it down with the other. "I love this bit," said the cat happily. "Want to see me do that again?"

"No," said Coraline. "Why do you do it? You're torturing it."

"Mm," said the cat. It let the rat go.

The rat stumbled, dazed, for a few steps, then it began to run. With a blow of its paw, the cat knocked the rat into the air, and caught it in its mouth.

"Stop it!" said Coraline.

The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one-after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?"

And then it picked the rat up in its mouth and carried it off into the woods, behind a tree.

Coraline walked back into the house.

All was quiet and empty and deserted. Even her footsteps on the carpeted floor seemed loud. Dust motes hung in a beam of sunlight.

At the far end of the hall was the mirror. She could see herself walking towards the mirror, looking, reflected, a little braver than she actually felt. There was nothing else there in the mirror. Just her, in the corridor.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up. The other mother stared down at Coraline with big black-button eyes.

"Coraline, my darling," she said. "I thought we could play some games together this morning, now you're back from your walk. Hopscotch? Monopoly? Happy Families?"

"You weren't in the mirror," said Coraline.

The other mother smiled. "Mirrors," she said, "are never to be trusted. Now, what game shall we play?"

Coraline shook her head. "I don't want to play with you," she said. "I want to go home and be with my real parents. I want you to let them go. To let us all go."

The other mother shook her head, very slowly. "Sharper than a serpent's tooth," she said, "is a daughter's ingratitude. Still, the proudest spirit can be broken, with love." And her long white fingers waggled and caressed the air.

"I have no plans to love you," said Coraline. "No matter what. You can't make me love you."

"Let's talk about it," said the other mother, and she turned and walked into the sitting room. Coraline followed her.

The other mother sat down on the big sofa. She picked up a brown handbag from beside the sofa, and took out a white, rustling, paper bag from inside it.

She extended the hand with the paper bag in it to Coraline. "Would you like one?" she asked politely.

Expecting it to be a toffee or a butterscotch ball, Coraline looked down. The bag was half-filled with large shiny blackbeetles, crawling over each other in their efforts to get out of the bag.

"No," said Coraline. "I don't want one."

"Suit yourself," said her other mother. She carefully picked out a particularly large and black beetle, pulled off its legs (which she dropped, neatly, into a big glass ashtray on the small table beside the sofa), and popped the beetle into her mouth. She crunched it happily.

"Yum," she said, and took another.

"You're sick," said Coraline. "Sick and evil and weird."

"Is that any way to talk to your mother?" her other mother asked, with her mouth full of blackbeetles.

"You aren't my mother," said Coraline.

Her other mother ignored this. "Now, I think you are a little overexcited, Coraline. Perhaps this afternoon we could do a little embroidery together, or some watercolour painting. Then dinner, and then, if you have been good, you may play with the rats a little before bed. And I shall read you a story and tuck you in, and kiss you goodnight." Her long white fingers fluttered gently, like a tired butterfly, and Coraline shivered.

"No," said Coraline.

The other mother sat on the sofa. Her mouth was set in a line; her lips were pursed. She popped another blackbeetle into her mouth, and then another, like someone with a bag of chocolate-covered raisins. Her big black-button eyes looked into Coraline's hazel eyes. Her shiny black hair twined and twisted about her neck and shoulders, as if it were blowing in some wind that Coraline could not touch or feel.