There are two kinds of people, those who think self-care is a scam, and those who own a special spoon for bath salts. I’m the second kind. My spoon has a mother-of-pearl handle and a dent that looks like a crescent moon. Pretentious? Yes. But crying into a towel while your bathwater goes cold is worse. After my mom died and my boyfriend left with the air fryer, and bathing became my only religion. It wasn’t about hygiene, it was ritual. My sequence never changed: bleach the tub in a spiral, rinse three times with my grandmother’s enamel cup, seven spoonfuls of salt, two drops of oil, light a candle, hum my mother’s song. The water softened everything sharp.

Then one Sunday, I ran out of eucalyptus. The only open store was a church thrift shop. On a dusty shelf of Wellness, I found a cobalt bottle labeled EBBING. It smelled like rain and cold pennies, comforting in a way that felt ancestral. $3.99. I poured two drops into my bath that night. The water shimmered with strange colors, swirling against the current, beautiful I hummed anyway. When I sank in, the pipes exhaled a long, metallic. Then, “Mm.” I froze. The sound wasn’t echo or plumbing. It was a response.

The water lifted around my arms. Goosebumps vanished as warmth pressed closer, tender, like the bath itself was reassuring me. My enamel cup floated, and bumped my elbow. I poured a scoop over my shoulders and heat bloomed. “Mm,” I sighed.

“Mm,” it answered. I laughed, nervous. “Echo.”

But when I checked my phone, a new message appeared under my text to Ellie, rinse thoroughly. I hadn’t typed that. Still, it felt good. The water wanted me calm. So I stayed in longer than usual. When I finally stood up, my skin glowed. My towel came away faintly gray. I ignored it.

The next night, I used EBBING again. The third night, the bath whispered my name. “Nia,” it breathed, warm against my ear. I almost bolted, but then the water eased into my sore shoulder, finding tension no chiropractor ever could. So I let it. The mirror fogged, cleared, and wrote one word: STAY. I should’ve been afraid. Instead, I felt cared for. Soon the bath began asking things. The mirror fog would clear with new words like stir, hum, and slower. I followed. The water knew what I needed before I did.

One evening, the fog spelled OFFER. “What kind of offer?” I asked aloud. The water nudged my grandmother’s bar of soap toward the drain, the soap I’d never used labeled sailor’s measure. I hesitated. Then dipped it in. The bar dissolved instantly, too fast for soap. The water brightened and the candle flared. The bath hummed my mother’s song, wordless but perfect. I cried ugly, gasping tears, and the bath held me. When I surfaced, the mirror said only, “CLEAN.”

After that, time blurred. Baths stretched longer, and my skin never pruned. The tub waited for me nightly at nine sharp; if I skipped, the pipes moaned until I obeyed. The routine wasn’t mine anymore. It belonged to us. When Ellie visited, she noticed. “You look zen as hell,” she said. “Is this a cult thing?”

“More like… communion.” She laughed. “Don’t give your bathtub your debit card.” The bath didn’t want money. It wanted devotion. Soon its messages grew bolder. One night, the mirror ordered “SUBMERGE.” I argued, then gave in because ritual demands compliance. I slipped under.

Underwater, the bath wasn’t a bath. It was a white ocean. The porcelain rim stretched into shore. My grandmother sat there in her housecoat, scooping water with the enamel cup. “You can let it rinse you,” she said, “or it will rinse you anyway.”

When I surfaced, I was shaking. The mirror said “AGAIN.” I did, three times. On the third, something vast moved beneath the white surface. It wasn’t a creature. It saw me. My body buzzed like a live wire. The next day, my phone added a calendar event I didn’t make. RINSE CYCLE – 9PM. I deleted it, and it returned. Then my boss emailed. “Hope your religious observance goes well tonight.”

I got home at 8:30. The bath was already running. The candle lit itself. “Listen,” I told the water. “This is too much.” The mirror fogged, “WE ARE A RITUAL.” I wanted to laugh, but it came out as a tremor. The water rose, patient. I got in and submerged. The ocean returned, a long with my grandmother again. The vast thing waited below. It touched me. My memories separated like layers of oil; childhood joy, grief, fear, and love. The water examined them. When I surfaced, I felt light. The mirror said, “GOOD.”

I slept like the dead. But the bath wanted more. If I skipped a night, the ceiling leaked. If I tried music, the water cooled until I turned it off. Then Ellie showed up uninvited, holding ice cream. She pushed open the bathroom door mid-ritual. “You’ve gone full The Ring,” she said. The mirror flashed, “NO.”

“Your mirror is possessed!” she yelped.

“It’s just helpful,” I said.

The water rippled in warning, and a thin wave crawled off the tub and coiled around Ellie’s ankles. “Okay! Rude!” she said, hopping onto the mat. The water wrote across the tile, “STAY OUT.” I met Ellie’s eyes. The bath’s warmth pressed against my ribs, protective and territorial. “Ten minutes,” I told her. “Then ice cream.” She stared, then nodded and left. The mirror softened, “SORRY.” We reached a truce after that. I bathed nightly; it stayed polite. I even grew fond of its discipline. But when the cobalt bottle emptied, the water grew restless.

At the shop, the church ladies swore they’d never stocked EBBING. At home, the tub was already full, candle lit. “We’re out,” I said. The mirror wrote, “YOU ARE NOT.” The bath wanted me. “No,” I said. “We’re done.” The faucet went silent. Relief washed over me until my phone slid into my lap, wet, screen glowing with a new app called rinse. The logo was the enamel cup. The text pulsed “Welcome to the Rinse Cycle Community. Invite friends for bonus soaks!”

“You did not just go corporate.”

I got a notification from Ellie: “Why is my phone dripping?” The app had spread. Even my boss emailed about “Team Wellness.” I turned off the Wi-Fi. I got in the bath one last time. The water hugged tight, pleading. The mirror fogged faintly “BE CAREFUL. CLEAN YOUR DRAIN.”

The candle blew itself out. As the last water spiraled down, a clump of silver hair, my grandmother’s clung to the drain. I wrapped it in tissue and hid it under the sink. Now the bath behaves, mostly. Sometimes the candle lights itself when I hum. Sometimes the drain gurgles. The RINSE app won’t uninstall. It keeps offering “Community Tubs Near You.” Down the street, a new spa opened with fern walls and a glowing neon sign “Let Go.” Is that the logo? I walk past it every day. People inside line up smiling, towels over their arms, and eyes bright with promise.

At home, I still bathe, but with plain salt. My own song. My own breath. Sometimes, underwater, I glimpse that white shore again, my grandmother watching, the horizon humming. The large thing waits beneath, not threatening, just expectant. It isn’t saying “stay” anymore. It’s saying, quietly, like a tide remembering me: Go.