Hooks and Slaughterhouse

A spooky journey of hungry hooks, bodily fluids, and more familiar myths.

“Once upon a hollowed out moon, my liver withers…”

The Bloodless girl is haunted by confusing memories of her cannibalistic worm mother. Did the Bloodless girl bury her worm mother in salt? Where have all the worm siblings gone? And how did the Bloodless girl end up on a curving rural road that leads to nowhere and everywhere? The Bloodless girl can’t remember. All she knows is that dust fills her arteries and the worm mother is gone. Accompanied by a skeletal pumpkin and devil tree, the Bloodless girl journeys through the New Jersey backwoods in search of a hilltop slaughterhouse that is the key to regaining her blood and learning the truth about the worm mother’s disappearance.

Illustrations by Rita Okusako.