Page 9 of An Inheritance of Monsters

But it was the bathroom I wanted to use the most, and to conduct my first experiment in.

As night fell, I set up our old spirit box on the sink’s black marble countertop. It was a converted radio, and would flip automatically through the frequencies, allowing whatever was in this house to speak through the white noise.

Assuming whatever was in this house wouldwantto talk to me. The darkness in the parlor had been like nothing I’d ever seen before.

Most ghosts appeared to me as tattered, sheer veils of white, like wisps of smoke tugged on a breeze. I’d never seen a formless shadow try to communicate before.

When true night fell, I filled the enormous claw-foot bathtub, undressed, turned off the lights, and stepped in.

The steaming water was a welcome respite from the chill pervading the island. In the darkness, floating in the bath, it was as close as I could get to a sensory deprivation chamber.

I leaned my head back against the smooth edge of the porcelain, letting my hands drape over the sides of the tub.

“Is there anyone here who would like to speak to me?”

Soft white noise filled the air once my voice finished echoing. I took several breaths, emptying my mind of anything bothering me, and tried again.

“I’m Juno. If you have a name, please speak to me through the box.”

I waited, but after several minutes, the spirit box had given out nothing but more static.

The water sloshed a little against the edges of the bath.

Juno.

My eyes shot open, but of course I could see nothing. “Hello?”

My voice came out in a cracked whisper. Some ghosts were shy; I might get nothing but one word out of them, and then not a peep for weeks.

Juuunoooooooo.

The sound wasn’t coming from the static of the spirit box. It filled the room, the box rattling a little as the walls themselves reverberated from the depth of it…

And the water was swirling around me, sloshing out over the sides of the bathtub. I scrambled to get up, but my feet slipped on the slick porcelain—

And something soft and silky wrapped around me, dragging me underwater.

I slammed my mouth shut on a scream as the water closed over my head, my eyes squeezed tight against the heat. But there was no bottom—the bottom of the bath was gone.

The porcelain had vanished and I was still sinking.

I kicked blindly, propelling myself upwards in a spray of bubbles. My head broke the surface on darkness…

But it wasn’t the darkness of the bathroom.

No, this was something else. I almost choked on the warm water I was treading as I stared up at a starry sky.

I had never seen a night sky like this. Millions of stars, pinpricks of burning flame… all of them circling overhead in a vast vortex, sucked in towards a pit of absolute darkness miles above me.

There was no sun. Despite the stars, it was midnight around me, but I could see… the sea.

I was in a vast sea, the stars reflected on the black waves. It was so dark I could barely make out my own pale arms just beneath the surface.

But there were swirls of luminescence, bright greens and blues that crested with every soft wave. One of them washed against me, the glow sticking to my skin.

I kicked hard, gulping for air and trying my best not to hyperventilate. Which was completely and totally not working.

I had gone through the bath intoanother fucking world.

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