Crypt of the Moon Spider (Lunar Gothic Trilogy, #1)

by Nathan Ballingrud

Her husband allowed himself to be guided to the receptionist’s desk, where, with the scrawl of his signature, the custody of Veronica Brinkley was transferred from himself to the Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy, where she was to be treated until sane, however long it might take.

She breathed for a moment, trying to collect herself. But it was like attempting to gather pollen in the gusting wind: she scattered like a million bright vessels.

The thought crawled out of the wet black loam of her brain like some horrid new insect. It scrabbled unchecked through her mind, eating everything clean and good in her, laying clutches of wet, mucousy eggs in its stead.

What if they found a city of living Moon Spiders, where madness was a holy marker, and they were received as prophets?

He pulled absently at the loose stitches over his ear, and she watched in horror as a spider the size of her fingernail wriggled out.

She saw the pale gray curve of her own brain breaching the skull. She watched as a spider stepped gingerly across its surface. Long fibrous strands trailed from her brain to the floor, where they ended in a bloody swamp.

Her body was partially suspended from the gurney, her eyes clouded with the orderly’s blood. She tried to shout but the stitches pulled taut, sending a sharp spike of pain through her head. She wondered if the top of her skull had been knocked loose, imagined it rolling like a dropped coin down the hallway.

She did not want to vomit with her mouth sewn shut.

Cull removed his yearning for love, his self-reflection, his hopes for a return to New York and to Maggie’s good graces. He left in place the brutality and the desire to serve.

“How could I ever become a burden to them? That doesn’t make any sense.” “When what you need outweighs what you offer. Make no mistake, child. Your life does not belong to you.”

Soon these cold and ghostly forests would throng with life once again, and the moon would open its glaring eye.

Running across the tops of the trees, she turned her eye to the blue and green sliver of Earth. She peered down through the long gulf until she found the little girl staring back up at her, a flag of life in the blowing wheat.