It was a surprisingly familiar taste. One of Cook’s favorite dishes to make in the summer months was a black risotto, full of clams, shallots, and spot prawns. The rice was an exotic obsidian, dyed with squid ink.
Ink! The tub was impossibly full of ink.
Without warning, a tentacle shot from the water, snaking around my torso and constricting tightly. It was mottled red and purple, with lines of orange suckers latching on to me. Another arm attacked my leg, winding up it with a fierce possession. I flailed and kicked, but nothing could pry the beast fromme.
The bulbous head of an octopus broke the surface, intelligent amber eyes surveying me through slit pupils. With my free foot, I lashed out at them, praying it would release me.
The creature reared back, and I could see its muscular underside. Dozens of suckers pointed directly to its wickedly sharp black mouth. It opened once, twice, as if pondering which part of me to attack first.
It launched at me, and just before I felt the beak sink into my thigh, I woke up. My heart pounded, echoing its racing rhythms up through my chest and into my throat as I gasped for air.
I’d fallen asleep.
It was a dream.
An awful, awful dream.
Lowering back into the cooling waters, I let out a sigh of relief but immediately jerked up as pounding sounded against the door.
“Annaleigh, I swear, if you make me late, I’m going to murderyou!”
“Coming!”
I pushed myself out of the water, wondering how long I’d dozed. Looking at the white porcelain as I toweled off, I couldn’t remember why I’d been so scared in the first place. It was just a bathtub. Elizabeth dying there didn’t change that.
Standing in front of the mirror, I twisted my wet hair up and spotted something on my back. A set of red marks raked down my spine, almost as if I’d been scratched.
“Camille?” I unlocked the door.
“Finally!” She burst in, arms full of towels, soaps, and oils.
“Would you look at this?” I turned, showing her my naked back. “What does it look like to you? I can’t see it very well in the mirror.”
Her fingertips on my skin were cold, pushing at the tender spot. “You scratched yourself.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Hmm?”
“I didn’t scratch myself.”
She turned back to me, her face deadpan. “It must have been Elizabeth, then.”
“Camille!”
“Well, what do you want me to say? It’s a scratch. I get them all the time. It probably happened while you were scrubbing.” She pulled her shift over her head and paused. “You did scrub, didn’t you?”
A scoff escaped me. I wasn’t Verity. “Of course!”
Camille noticed the full bath. “You didn’t drain the tub!”
As she leaned in to find the stopper, a hand reached out of the water, grabbing her neck and dragging her under. Elizabeth surfaced from churning waters, her eyes filmed a sickly green.
“Camille!” I shrieked, shattering the horrible image. She jerked away from the tub with an exasperated sigh.
“What now?”
I blinked, clearing my vision. This wasn’t like the tentacled monster. I hadn’t fallen asleep. I’d seen a ghost, just as Verity said I would, now that I knew to look.
