I’ve heard it said - from unlikely survivors, I suppose, or perhaps it’s just a story and we shouldn’t expect too much from it in the way of logic - that one whisper feeds this god more often than any other: 'I don't want to.'

This is a fact agreed upon across every territory of the Peninsula. And so, really, the only point of difference between the people born to the water and the people born to the land is the precise nature of the sacrifice we need to make.

For me, you are stillness. And you are fury.

This sentient parcel of shredded wheat with the bulging eyes, the grinning toothed mouth that takes up most of his body, and he eats shredded wheat even though he is of course made of shredded wheat. I mean, it’s a nightmare. But the funny thing is, it worked, for the most part.

I swear I can see the muscle and flesh stripping away from my quarry as Mr Finch strides, unhesitatingly, into the Hollow. Flakes of skin, like ash, floating away into the fields.

These are The Silt Verses. And I name its disciples thus.

And as I stood there alone on the empty lawn, crying and sobbing with my hands clenching... that morning I looked down into the depths of our pond and I saw that the goldfish were dead.

FAULKNER The prayer stamp on the radio’s rubbing away. They should have given us a new van. One with working wipers and a working radio.

He rejoices in the fact that we two have been chosen - no, blessed - to witness this grand wonder of trans-substantiation, the great and undeniable harm that is the fishing boat of bone and flesh, sent to us upon a sacred tide.

Along the very brink of the White Gull River...well, here you used to find water-worshippers, dotted up and down the banks. Followers of the Trawler-man.

PETERSON That’s a fine sentiment, to be called. You will never know the Waxen Scrivener in her full glory during your lifetime, I fear - but hold fast. All things, even this great empire of steel and wire, will rot to nothing with time’s passage. You could say that-

FAULKNER I see it, Carpenter.

This is what I mean. Everyone wants a personal relationship with the divine, but none of us are really equipped to handle the consequences.

This is Sid Wright, this is the Grindinglord’s 24-Hour Cool Cruising Mix, and we’re starting your day right with a-

In the dark, in the moonlight...for a moment it seems as if the five fisherfolk have simply frozen in place, playing a great and extended joke upon the two of us; posing in various positions of flight around the boat.

And afterwards, your final shriek of uncomprehension will linger on in this new haunt, a lasting echo that will make the builders and architects shiver as they come rolling in and build new homes or new towers over your ruin.

My Nana Glass, who knew the straits and sacred tides of the lower delta better than any fisherman I ever met, would tell me that there were people who’d been born to the land, and there were people who’d been born to the water.

Every dawn and every dusk, my travelling companion will mark the signs of the Trawler-man across this chalkboard. Prayers seeking guidance, and protection, and the ultimate blessing itself - transformation.

Its crew are still onboard. It takes us time, in the dark, in the moonlight, to see just how thoroughly they have been changed.

FAULKNER I shall praise him.