She dreamed of black shapes that slid from place to place, avoiding the light, until they were all gathered together under the moon. Little black shapes with little red eyes and sharp yellow teeth.

They started to sing:

We are small but we are many
We are many, we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall

Their voices were high and whispery and slightly whiny. They made Coraline feel uncomfortable.

Then Coraline dreamed a few commercials, and after that she dreamed nothing at all

She almost had it when somebody said 'Coraline?'

It sounded like her mother. Coraline went into the kitchen, where the voice had come from. A woman stood in the kitchen with her back to Coraline. She looked a little like Coraline's mother. Only...

Only her skin was white as paper.

Only she was taller and thinner.

Only her fingers were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark-red fingernails were curved and sharp.

'Coraline?' the woman said. 'Is that you?'

And then she turned round. Her eyes were big black buttons.

'Nothing to find here', said the cat. 'This is just the outside, the part of the place she hasn't bothered to create.

'She?'

'The one who says she is your other mother', said the cat.

'What is she?', asked Coraline.

The cat didn't answer, just padded through the pale mist beside Coraline.

Something began to appear in front of them, something high and towering and dark.

'You were wrong!', she told to the cat. 'There is something there!'

And then it took shape in the mist: a dark house, which loomed at them out of the formless whiteness.

'But that's—' said Coraline.

'The house you just left', agreed the cat. 'Precisely'

'Maybe I just got turned around in the mist', said Coraline.

The cat curled the high tip of its tail into a question mark, and tipped its head on to one side. 'You might have done', it said. 'I certainly would not. Wrong, indeed'.

'But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?'

'Easy', said the cat. 'Think of somebody walking around the world. You start out walking away from something and end up coming back to it'.

'Small world', said Coraline.

'It's big enough for her', said the cat. 'Spiders' webs only have to be large enough to catch flies'.