A young woman, committed to an asylum, undergoes a bizarre treatment that unlocks a vast well of power in this cosmic horror novella, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher.
Veronica Brinkley has been committed to The Barrowfield Home, run by Dr. Cull, to treat her depression. The institution is built on the crypt of a giant Lunar Spider, tended to by a monastic group of worshippers called the Alabaster Scholars. Dr. Cull is using the lunar silk from the dead spider to “repair” people’s brains.
As Veronica’s memories are tampered with, she finds a surprising reserve of power within herself, upending everyone else’s plans for her and stepping into a grand new role she had never imagined for herself.
Dark bleatings, my lovelies. This dark little novella was interesting as I read it, but now it’s one day later and I’ve absorbed it more fully, and now it’s really freaking me out!
Veronica is on the moon at a treatment centre that will apparently help her with her mental health, but we can see almost immediately that something is wrong here. The treatment involves spider silk, taken from a now extinct, very large type of spider that used to inhabit the moon. The first thing that feels jarring is that this sci-fi concept, both medical and in terms of our space inhabitation capabilities, feels futuristic but it’s set in the 1920’s. Additionally, the treatment of the people in the facility really does harken back to the attitudes of the 1920’s, so this juxtaposition between past and future all blended into one like this was mildly disorientating, and kind of genius, honestly. It gives the impression that while technology might develop quickly, our social stigmas don’t, and it made me afraid for Veronica because I had no idea what advanced kind of barbarism might have been awaiting her.
The atmosphere, for me, was very much The Yellow Wallpaper crossed with The House on Haunted Hill (I can’t really explain the latter, the doctors were just scaring me with that vibe!).
The medical anxiety this gave me…oh my goodness! I’ve been on the receiving end of a scalpel myself, and even in the best circumstances it’s quite scary entrusting someone with your life like this, and what made it worse was that it’s Veronica’s brain they plan to operate on. Mix this with the…eeeeeeee….the spider element! I don’t care if it’s just the silk! I am so arachnophobic that my toes were curling as I read this. It was like the author looked into my mind, glimpsed my two worst fears, and fused them together just to terrify me.
It’s a really odd, unique, and fascinating story and if you’re a horror fan looking for something a bit outside the box, you might enjoy this.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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