December 1748, the Hida Mountains. Eight men have gone missing since September in the village of Yumegawa. No bodies. No traces. Only silvery silk threads on the rooftops and a silence that feels different from ordinary silences.
Lord Matsumura sends five samurai under the command of Katsuro Tetsuo. What they find is beyond anything they were trained for: the Jorogumo, a thousand-year-old spider in human form, awakened and ravenous, whose flesh-armour can only be broken if two conditions are met ? a bronze mirror forged two centuries earlier, and an arrow shot in the split second when the armour cracks.
But the Jorogumo learns. She studies the group, identifies each member's weaknesses?a young swordsman's desire, a tracker's guilt, a wounded archer's pride?and adapts. And when both conditions are finally met, the question is no longer simply whether she can be killed. It is what becomes of us in the attempt.
JOROGUMO is a historical supernatural thriller set in Kan'en-era Japan, on the border between what an official report can contain and what only a blank page can say.
