One Hundred Thousand Lives After Death

The human Tillie may have died a decade ago, but the spiders that inhabit her bones have only just started living.

If their roles had been reversed, she did not know if she could have found his courage to stay. To rewrite the boundaries of humanity to keep him squarely inside it, no matter how monstrous he became.

Half of Tillie's life is perfect. She and her husband live in an idyllic cottage with model trains in the attic, a studio for her art, and a beautiful garden that nestles close to the expansive forest behind. She has a thriving online community of artistic friends, and after years of training the spiders that hold her consciousness to perfectly puppeteer a human body, she is finally meeting them in person at an oceanside retreat.

The other half of Tillie is an unspeakable monster. There are spiders in the forest carrying a hunger that Tillie has exiled from herself in an effort to deserve her second chance at life. But when her long-estranged sister reappears at her door, angry and demanding the return of the magic that's kept Tillie alive long after her death, the delicate strands that have held Tillie's life together begin to break. And with a monster in the forest, there's no telling what she'll become when she rebuilds herself from all her disparate pieces.