"How's it going, Loper?" Maggie Collins drawled when she saw Coraline and Wybie actually approach their morning spot early for once, "You actually made it today."

"I'd better tell my dad to watch out for flying pigs on his way to work," her brother Emile, older than her by eleven months and therefore able to be in the same grade as the rest of them, drawled in a manner similar to his sister, "Thanks a lot, Stalker, you caused the apocalypse."

"Ha ha, very funny," Wybie commented as he sat down at their table, "I'm sorry that my being early is tearing the fabric of reality, but Jonesy was very insistent this morning."

"I'm insistent every morning! This time I just had a car to run you over with!" Coraline responded, sitting down in between Wybie and Emile at the circular table. The Collins siblings laughed and Wybie grumbled something about "everyone ganging up" and "not fair". Even though all four of them were great friends, the Collins siblings often sided with their oldest friend in teasing Wybie.

Coraline was grateful that she had insisted that the Collins family come visit from Pontiac for the summer that first year she had been at the Pink Palace. Her best friends had arrived with their parents in tow, and their mother (who had recently been laid off from the fashion magazine she worked at) had gotten a job at Coraline's parents' catalog that same month. Therefore, the rest of the summer for the Collinses had been moving into a house about a three minute walk from the cluster of schools they'd be going to – a three mile walk from Coraline and Wybie. And while Coraline had been friends with Maggie and Emile since their "swampers were too big for their legs" (Emile's own way of putting it), it took no time for them to bond with Wybie as well, and the four became close friends.

However, Coraline had noticed something in the intervening five years since she had moved to the Pink Palace. While she still cherished Maggie and Emile and she was thankful that they had been able to join her, most of her time had been spent and most of her comfort had been derived from her time with Wybie. Ever since he had helped her at the well, they had spent nearly all of their time together. There were times where he could still be a little awkward or a little hesitant, and his fascination with bugs and science had only gotten more powerful, but he was always there for her. He trusted her, and she trusted him. He believed her about all the supernatural stuff that had happened – even about the Cat – and they had saved each other's lives that night when the Other Mother had finally lost.

But there was always something looming in the back of Coraline's mind when it came to Wybie. There was an inherent closeness she felt to him, whether it was caused by the supernatural happenings or not, and she often found herself instinctively trying to be close to him. Their bond ran deeper than most, and she could feel it, but Coraline didn't know why.

"So," Maggie said, popping a piece of gum into her mouth, "since you have a car now, are we going to do something after school?"

"Let's do paintball," Emile suggested jokingly, and Wybie shuddered; the last time they had gone paintballing, Wybie got a bruise on his buttock that took two weeks to stop hurting.

"Let's not," Coraline said, and Maggie giggled. "How about a movie?"

"What's playing that's good?" Emile asked, and the four paused to consider. They couldn't think of anything that they really wanted to see; the next Marvel movie wasn't due out for another few months, and the latest Disney animated film had been closed for a while.

"How about bowling?" Wybie suggested, and the other three quickly agreed. Soon it was decided that they would meet by Coraline and Maggie's last class of the day, and the bell rang – old school style with an actual bell ringer in the bell tower – for homeroom. Wybie and Emile headed off to the boys' wing of their gender-segregated school while Maggie and Coraline leisurely strolled to theirs just twenty feet away.

"Bowling tonight, huh?" Maggie said, smirking. Coraline raised her eyebrow in confusion and suspicion.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, nothing. I take it you'll be on Wybie's team?"

"We flip a coin usually, don't we?"

"Yeah, but even then you somehow manage to be on his team," Maggie commented, chuckling a little. "And I notice that you didn't offer to drive me and Emile to school today."

"You guys live five minutes away walking!"

"So? Bro got his license three months ago and he still drives to the grocery store. He just sits in the driveway and pretends to drive when he doesn't have anywhere to go."

"Weirdo."

"I know. But I'm just saying, you didn't offer to pick us up, and that's unusual for a newly licensed driver." Coraline sighed.

"Is there a point to this, Mags?"

"Yup. You like Wybie."

"He's one of my best—"

"Friends, I know. But you like him," Maggie pronounced as they took their seats in the back row. Coraline huffed as she dropped her bag to the ground and dropped into her seat in Miss Olivier's junior homeroom class.

"No way. Wybie's… Wybie," Coraline responded, thinking of no other word to describe her best friend. Any adjective or title would have fallen too short of what he meant to her, but she even felt that "Wybie" didn't quite describe it either. It came close enough, though, so she used it.

"And you like Wybie," Maggie said. Coraline opened her mouth to retort, but Miss Olivier cleared her throat in order to call the class to order. Miss Olivier, a slim pale woman with short cropped black hair that never failed to bring back flashbacks of the Other Mother to Coraline (to the point where Coraline would never look directly at her and instead stare at a point on the board near her), gently began to take roll and give the announcements for the day before beginning their English lesson on Alice in Wonderland.

As Miss Olivier was lecturing on the contrast between Alice's age and the questions she was asking, Coraline began to doze off. She didn't normally – it's hard for someone to get straight As if they are constantly falling asleep in class – but something made her so drowsy that she faded into a light sleep.

She saw a green light, faded and obscured by what looked to be cobwebs. Her dream self brushed the cobwebs aside to reveal the source of the light: a glowing green button attached to the little door that Coraline knew too well. In the dream, she backed away from it, cringing, but the Sweet Ghost Girl – whose name she now knew to be Eleanor thanks to several talks with Wybie's grandmother – floated out of the door without moving the handle.

"The magic is coming for you," Eleanor whispered urgently.

"Magic?" Coraline, the younger version of Coraline that Eleanor had met before, asked hoarsely.

"The beldam's magic!"

"The Other Mother is still there?!"

"No, she has been destroyed," Eleanor said, and Coraline breathed a sigh of relief, "but her magic still breathes… It is waiting…"

"Why? What is it waiting for?" Coraline asked, terror clutching at her chest. The light from the doorknob button pulsed even brighter, and Coraline let out a scream, accidentally overpowering what Eleanor was trying to say.

"…to, please. You have to destroy it…"

"What? Destroy what?" Dream Coraline croaked.

"The source! It bridges them! The Other magic lives! And it wants you!"

"Eleanor, wait! Please tell me again!" Dream Coraline called, but the dream began to fade. Eleanor disappeared, her sad eyes and pretty pink dress disintegrating before her eyes, but the green light got brighter until Coraline winced awake.

She opened her eyes to see Maggie watching over her in the infirmary, her green eyes peering into Coraline's amber ones. Coraline blinked a few times before getting her bearings; she was lying on one of the beds in the infirmary, her blazer and tie having been removed, and Maggie was looking at her worriedly.

"Coraline?" Maggie asked tentatively.

"Yeah? I'm awake," Coraline answered as hoarsely as she had sounded in her dream, "What happened?"

"You passed out in class and started seizing and crying," Maggie informed her, tears and worry replacing her normal easygoing drawl, "When you stopped, I couldn't wake you up. Miss Olivier called Mr. Douglas to come carry you to the infirmary. You've been out for an hour."

Coraline was surprised that she had been out that long – the dream hadn't seemed to go on for very long – but her friend's worry superseded any surprise she might have felt. "I'm sorry, Mags. I don't know why that happened." It was a small lie, but if it made Maggie feel better, it'd be okay. She'd tell the truth to Wybie later – he needed to know.

"As long as you're okay, Loper," Maggie said, finally smiling. Coraline smiled back at her friend. Maggie hadn't changed much since middle school, not in any big ways. She still had the same circular spectacles and the freckles on her cheeks that she hated. Her hair was still the same mousy brown, straight and jagged no matter how many different volumizing shampoos and conditioners she tried, and she still had the same rounded face. But she had gotten much taller – taller now than both Coraline and Wybie (except when he was able to stop hunching over) – and all of her baby fat had distributed evenly through her body so that she looked more balanced.

"Coraline!" a voice called from the door of the infirmary, and Emile rushed in, Wybie following close behind. "We just heard from Mr. Douglas. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I don't really know what happened," she lied again, but when she caught Wybie's eye, she could tell he knew she was fibbing. Emile breathed a sigh of relief and dropped into a nearby chair on the other side of the bed from his sister while Wybie inched slowly closer to Coraline's head.

While Maggie had edged gracefully into adolescence, Emile on the other hand had possibly gotten more awkward and gangly. His face hadn't changed much – his nose looked a little less clunky now that his face had matured a bit more – but he was now the tallest junior at their school at six feet four inches and his arms and legs were so long that he looked like Jack Pumpkinhead from Return to Oz. He had the same mousy brown hair as his sister, but he did not require the spectacles nor did he have the freckles.

Wybie had perhaps changed the least. He had thankfully gotten taller so that when he wasn't hunched over, he was a little taller than Coraline and Maggie, but even when he was hunched he was still the same height as his best friend. His hair was still strangely-shaped and unmanageable, but it was shorter now. His face had slimmed a little, but his chocolate brown eyes remained round and pleading. Most importantly there was an air of strength around him that he definitely hadn't had when they first met, and Coraline sometimes wondered where it had come from.

Coraline took these familiar features as comfort, feeling that even though Eleanor had told her that someone was out to get her, her friends would always be there for her.

Soon the nurse let Coraline go, and she and Maggie headed back to History in the girls' wing. Wybie and Emile had left shortly after they had made sure Coraline was all right (Mr. Douglas's mercy only extended so far), and when the final bell rang, the friends went out to the parking lot and toward Coraline's car.

As they approached it, Maggie and Emile squabbling over who got shotgun, Wybie touched Coraline's shoulder and she stopped for a moment.

"Jonesy, you okay? Really okay?" he whispered.

"Sort of. Can you come over after bowling? I'll tell you about it then," she replied just as quietly, picking up the pace once more. Wybie followed her for a moment before he touched her shoulder again. This time, without stopping, he asked faintly, "Is it something to do with… her?"

Coraline could not articulate an answer so she just nodded, and Wybie's expression turned from one of worry to dread. Luckily they reached the car right then and they all piled in – Emile having won the shotgun argument – to head to the bowling alley.

The vessel may die, but malevolent magic rarely is truly destroyed. It can hide, It can sleep, but until the source is gone, It lives on.