Coraline gathers up tools and moves down the tunnel, the cat close by. He tells her to challenge the Beldam, since she loves these games.  There's no guarantee she'll play fair, but it's the best chance she's got. At the end of the tunnel, Coraline's mother calls to her. Coraline rushes into her arms, hugging her.” Why did you run away from me Coraline?" It's just an illusion by the Beldam as she takes the black key and, after locking the door, swallows it. She sends the Other Father, now looking like a squat, grotesque pumpkin creature out into the garden and calls Coraline for breakfast. Coraline challenges the Beldam. She says if she loses in finding her parents and the eyes of the children, she’ll be the Beldams little girl, let her sew the buttons into her eyes and do what she wants. If the Beldam loses, she lets everyone, Coraline, the children and Coraline's parents go. She agrees and Coraline asks for a hint. The Beldam simply taps the side of her button eyes.  Coraline turns to her, only to find her gone.

Coraline's search begins in the garden, where she nearly loses the stone as several hummingbirds try to take it as snapdragons bite at her.  She is almost snared by plant tendrils, but uses weed clippers to escape.  Looking through the stone, she sees everything else muted in color and sees a glow. The glow is the least of her worries, as the O.Father, controlled by the wire gloves is forced to use the tractor to attack her. He says he's sorry, but finally wrenches free and breaks the top of the throttle off, revealing a small marble. As the tractor tries to cross the bridge, the O.father throws the marble to Coraline and the bridge breaks, sinking him and the tractor into the water and suddenly everything in the garden turns into stone. The first child congratulates her on her capture of the soul.

Coraline makes her way into Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible's room and finds a flashlight on the floor. Turning it up, she sees several Scottie dog faced bats. She turns the light off and they settle down. On the stage is a huge candy wrapper. Looking through the stone, she sees two clasped hands around the marble. Prying them apart, she grabs the marble, then Other Miss. Spink and Forcible clamp their hands together on her wrist, now melded together, the two call her a thief and demand the marble.  Coraline shines the light at the dogbats, getting them agitated before hurling the flashlight at them. The dogbats swoop down and Coraline ducks just as the hit Miss Sink and Forcible, who release the marble before they and the dogbats turn to stone and the theater begins turning to stone.

Coraline goes to Mr.B's flat next only to find Other Wybies clothes hanging overhead. She angrily calls to the Beldam she's not scared. Moving inside, a floppy limbed Mr.B greets her. His face isn't showing and he explains that even if she wins, she’ll go home and be bored. In this world she could have anything she wanted. She said she just wanted the old world because he was just a copy made by the Beldam.” Not even that anymore" Mr.B says as she grabs his hat, from where the glow is coming from. Mr.B falls apart, revealing he's made of thousands of rats, one rolling away with the marble.  Coraline chases him, only to have several rats aim the cotton candy cannons at her as she tries to dodge. As the rat moves through a doggy door, she hurls the stone at him.... and misses, with him leaping over it. Coraline tries to catch up, but the rat’s tails trip her and she goes through the door, falling unconscious.

Waking up later, with the moon being eclipsed by a button (meaning the game is almost over) and the rat nowhere in sight, she cries as she realizes that she failed everyone. The Cat brings the rats head with the marble in it's teeth to Coraline and she thanks him, realizing she still needs to save her parents. The Otherworld begins to lose all color and Coraline coaxes the Cat to jump into her bag and she runs into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Moving indoors, with the paint peeling behind her, she enters the much darker looking living room, which has a fireplace, spiderweb like ornaments (slightly neon like Oogie boogies lair in "Nbc") and paintings. The Beldam now has no resemblance to Coraline's mother. Her skin is wrinkled looking, her arms and hands look like the claws from the beginning of the film and she has two extra backlegs almost like a spider and her front legs are very long and thin. She notes that Coraline brought vermin with her (meaning the cat) but Coraline disagrees, saying she brought a friend. She shows the three souls to the Beldam, who tries to snag them, but Coraline refuses, since the game isn't over. The Beldam tells Coraline to say where her parents are, but she has to do it without the stone. The Beldam shows it to Coraline before burning it in the fire. Coraline says that they're behind the door. The Beldam smiles and she moves to cough up the key, moving the beetle dresser out of the way.

The Cat motions to a snow globe of the Detroit zoo, which Coraline sees contains her parents. The Beldam opens the door, showing nothing and gloating that Coraline must stay with her forever.  Coraline hurls the Cat into the Beldams face, who, after he scratches and bites her, with Coraline putting her parents in her pocket, slashes her button eyes off as she screams. The floor begins to fall apart as the Cat makes a break through the tiny door and Coraline falls into a giant spiderweb.  The Beldam, now blind, tries to search for her, but only succeeds when Coraline gets stuck and pulls free, the vibrations in the web reaching her and she climbs after Coraline.  Coraline struggles to close the door as the Beldams claws reach through. The ghost children’s hands reach out and slam the door, cutting the Beldams hand off at the wrist and locking it with the black key. Coraline runs with the other mother screams that she'll die without Coraline following her. She closes the small door and locks it and we hear no more of the Beldams voice.

Coraline's parents come home, but seem to remember none of the past events, simply thinking that Coraline hurt her knee, but they begin spending more time with her as the magazine is finished. That evening Coraline says she wants everyone to come to a party, even Mr.B."He's not drunk mom, he’s just eccentric.” she says. When her mother kisses her goodnight, she puts a small box, which contains the multicolored gloves on Coraline's bed.

The Cat, visibly upset with Coraline, comes to her window, but she explains it was all she could think of and he calms down, purring.  She goes to sleep and the ghost children speak to her, explaining that while they are free, the Beldam is trying to find a way through.  Coraline must get rid of the key so there's no way back to the Otherworld.

As Coraline takes the key around her neck outside, we see the tiny door and the clawed severed hand of the other mother get through. It follows Coraline silently like a spider, crawling until Coraline reaches the well. As she prepares to take off the key, the hand leaps and begins dragging the key around Coraline's neck back to the house, strangling Coraline in the process. We hear a familiar air horn and Wybie, in full helmet and on his bike, swats the hand, but it quickly trips him up, leaving him dangling from the hole over the well. It attempts to stab his hand, but Coraline nets it with her shawl before it rips through. As it prepares to pounce again, Wybie smashes it with a rock, shattering it. The two gather up the pieces of the hand and wrap it in the shawl with the rock and tie up the top with the string and the key before dropping it down the well and boarding it up.  Wybie explains that he began to believe Coraline when he saw the picture. He shows a picture of his Grandma and her twin sister and it's the smaller of the two ghost girls from before. Wybie wonders what he'll tell his Grandma and Coraline says she'll help him. She thanks him for being a stalker and he says it wasn't his idea, looking at the Cat, who seems to smile and Coraline smiles back.

At the end, we see Coraline bringing all the people living in pink palace lemonade as they help work on the garden.  Mr.B says the mice named Coraline as their savior and will give her a special performance when they're ready.  Wybies grandmother is greeted by Coraline as we are treated to how the beautiful garden is coming along. We finally see the sign of Pink Palace and the Cat stretches on top of it before moving off and vanishing from sight.

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