I must have swallowed half the tub but eventually I managed to haul myself over the side, landing in a shivering heap on the bath mat. Blood ran down my leg, and I trembled in every limb as I dragged myself to my feet. My eyes went straight to the bath, and so many of the bubbles had splashed on to the floor that I could finally see what had been in the water with me.

There weren’t several creatures as I’d first thought – just one massive one. It was an eel, easily a metre and a half long and as thick as a human thigh. It was still thrashing and flailing in the bathtub, exposing the white of its belly. As if sensing me watching, it opened the jaws of its rounded snout, revealing row after row of razor-sharp conical teeth.

It’s a nightmare, I told myself, trembling. It has to 239be, it has to be, it has to be. I would wake up at any moment…

Only I didn’t. The bathroom floor was icy cold beneath my feet, the blood was warm on my leg, and I knew that I was awake, that this was really happening. I snatched up the towel and backed away until I hit the sink. The next second, cold fingers brushed my bare shoulder, and I spun round.

A pair of white hands stretched right out of the old mirror – actually stretched right out of it this time, not merely pressing up against the glass like before. The fingers clutched at the air as if they were trying to grab me, more and more hands suddenly filling the warped glass behind them.

I tried to scream but my chest ached with the effort of attempting to force out air, and only the faintest breathless wheeze escaped my lips as I turned and fled the room, almost colliding with Kate out on the landing.

“Jess!” she exclaimed. “What in the world? Are you all right?”

I was still shaking from head to toe – even my lips were trembling, so it was hard to get the words out at all. 240

“Th-there are hands in the m-mirror and an eel in the … the bath.”

Kate gave me a look of total bafflement. “A what?”

I didn’t repeat myself, just grabbed her hand and dragged her into the bathroom.