Canon

This novel reimagines the classical heroic quest through the lens of a young, nonbinary protagonist living in a world that blends biblical mythology with anachronistic contemporary details such as shopping malls and television. The story unfolds across two parallel threads, one following the reluctant hero Yara and the other following the ambitious Prophet Adrena, before the two converge in the final act.

Yara, an eighteen-year-old embroiderer living alone in the small artist community of San Voyager, has severe contamination-related OCD. They travel regularly to the nearby Spring River, considered holy since Saint Nicholas's severed arm was thrown into it, to perform what they call a "hard reset" on their cleanliness. One day, God appears wearing a Vatican-brand tracksuit and tells Yara they have been chosen to defeat Dominic, a brutal general who burned the sacred Sibylline Books and felled the sacred tree. God wants someone weak and unassuming so that Dominic's defeat will demonstrate His power and recapture public attention. Yara feels unable to refuse but negotiates a secret condition. Before departing, Yara discovers a yellow newt in a glass bottle in the river; named Newt, he later proves able to detect truth and lies by changing color. An angel feeds Yara chewed bread, freeing them from hunger permanently, and God leaves instructions to follow glowing oysters into the wilderness.

The second thread introduces Adrena, a prophet in her midthirties, furious that God has passed her over. Adrena was born without her arachnoid mater, a membrane covering the brain, which allows God to speak directly into her mind. She can also sing things out of existence, erasing whatever she sings about along with everything that person or object ever created. Her deepest motivation is to achieve "assumption," a bodily ascension to Heaven without dying, as her mother once did, an event Adrena experienced as abandonment. She hopes killing Dominic will prove her worthy of reunion. Adrena rides to the Good Guys' Military Camp, where General Harpo wages war after his wife, Arielle, was kidnapped and taken toward Dominic's castle. Adrena lies her way into a co-command position by claiming God sent her and threatening that Arielle will die without her help, though she has no idea whether Arielle is alive.

Yara's journey takes them across the ocean on HOWBIG!, a talking whale who speaks in enthusiastic capitals. Yara refuses to ride inside HOWBIG!'s mouth and instead sits in a velvet armchair barnacled onto his back. Through flashbacks, the novel reveals Yara's trauma. As a child, Yara repeatedly left church to wash their legs, and their mother, Sabrina, told them prayer could cleanse anything, inadvertently transforming prayer into compulsion. Yara's father shared similar neuroses but coped through rage, once yanking Yara's shoulder from its socket. The deeper source of Yara's fear of men is also revealed: They observed their father touching his genitals without washing his hands, and a therapist's dismissal of this concern caused Yara to consider all men unclean.

Meanwhile, Adrena and Harpo travel to a shopping mall. Adrena buys every full-length mirror in Sears for a secret battle strategy. At a music store, she meets Sivan, a folk singer promoting her debut album with no prior connection to the war, and wins a singing contest by demonstrating her erasure power, singing away a Britney Spears cardboard cutout and other objects. Sivan joins the cause, and the narrator signals that Adrena will fall in love with her.

HOWBIG! carries Yara to islands inhabited by women. On the first, Yara finds Miss Tick, whose tongue Dominic cut out and whose hands are encased in concrete. After Yara frees her, Miss Tick demands a trade: one answer for one answer. A flashback reveals that at sixteen, Yara was caught by their parents on a date with their girlfriend Brynna while dressed in masculine clothing. Their father discovered Yara's identity and gave them one hour to leave. With no one else to call, Yara moved in with Lawrence, a fifty-three-year-old man who sexually imposed on them. Yara reveals that their bargain with God was to banish their father from Sabrina's home. On another island, another of God's chosen women, a shape-shifter named Gen, provides Yara's weapon, a gilded iron tent peg, from a machine called the Automatic Saint Press. Gen tests Yara by shape-shifting into Lawrence, but Yara fights back. Gen offers to assume Yara's form and complete the quest as a woman, but Yara refuses, insisting on continuing as themself.

As they sail further, the ocean fills with plastic debris and dead marine animals. On a garbage island, HOWBIG! confesses he deviated from God's route: God's map led to islands with men stationed to train Yara, but HOWBIG! chose islands with women instead, wanting to show Yara the true cost of divine service. God reappears and gives Yara a terrifying vision of total destruction if Dominic lives. Understanding this as a threat, Yara leaves HOWBIG! forever and joins God.

God pushes Yara into a void and commands them to build a world from their own loneliness, which He extracts from their chest as a material substance. Yara creates a paradise without grass, disease, captivity, or weapons, choosing to exclude humans. God sends Dominic replicas into this world; Yara is killed and reset repeatedly until they learn to kill, only to discover each replica was a real creation. Horrified, Yara is sent back to San Voyager along a road lined with staked heads. Yara calls Sabrina, who confirms their father is gone but sounds miserable rather than relieved.

At camp, Adrena confesses to Harpo that she lied about God sending her; he forgives her. On the eve of battle, Adrena admits to Sivan that God chose someone else to kill Dominic and that her prophethood feels inherited, not earned. In a parallel chapter, Arielle is revealed alive, dining as Dominic's captive; she escapes when he has a severe allergic reaction.

The battle at Mount Goodyear unfolds. Adrena's strategy of gluing mirror shards onto breastplates makes 2,000 soldiers shimmer like 10,000, confusing Dominic's forces. When Adrena spots Dominic approaching Harpo's unprotected back, she could end the war, but Sivan is in mortal danger on a nearby platform. Adrena chooses love over glory and races to save Sivan. Dominic spears Harpo's shoulder. Lightning splits the mountain and a miraculous flood drowns Dominic's army while sparing Harpo's men. Dominic flees.

Dominic stumbles into San Voyager, where Yara invites him inside without revealing their mission. After he falls asleep, Yara drives the tent peg through his temple. His dying words: "Now I am full of nothing but myself" (445). Yara goes to the Spring River to wash their hands, but the water recoils from them.

When Adrena, Sivan, and Harpo arrive, Adrena sings the spear out of Harpo's wound. Yara asks to be sung away too, declaring they refuse to be used to cause harm again. Sivan urges Adrena to honor the wish. Adrena sings, and Yara shimmers and vanishes. Because Yara is erased, their actions are undone: Dominic is alive again. God arrives furious, kills Dominic a second time with His own hand, and punishes Adrena by restoring her arachnoid mater, permanently ending her prophethood. For the first time in years, Adrena hears silence. God shows Harpo a vision of Arielle alive but insists on new battle plans, declaring there is never an end to the fighting. Sivan kisses Adrena, and they ride away together. In the final lines, Yara arrives in a world of their own making, stripped of clothing, dirt, and blood, standing in complete darkness. They smile and choose to create light.