If you see Em, tell him dinner’s almost done.
And he mustn’t forget to take the boy in the cellar out back before it gets dark, either.
Adelina Glass was the grandmother of Sister Carpenter and Em. She worshiped The Trawler-man, leaving sacrifices to him by tying such as postal workers to poles at the bottom of her garden, where they would drown. Carpenter summarizes her as "Terrifying, cruel, unforgettable Nana Glass."
| ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD! Beyond this point, major plot spoilers are expected. Continue at your own risk. |
Background[]
"There are people who’ve been born to the land, and people who’ve been born to the water. The people born to the land - grasping, controlling, clinging to life and wealth as a sapling clings to the dead soil - will never understand what it means to belong, body and spirit, to the water." - Sister Carpenter
Adelina Glass was a fervent follower of The Trawler-man who lived her entire life on the floodplains in the lower delta of the White Gull River. She is described as having a physically "frail figure", but was intimidating in all other ways. She had seventeen facial piercings (including in her ears, cheeks, and lips) all containing barbed hooks of varying shapes and sizes, and she wore them proudly in public despite the danger that neighbors would report her for false-faith worship.
In Carpenter's recollections, Nana Glass both feared and loved the Trawler-man, and would often sing when working in the marshy areas of her garden or preparing an unwilling sacrifice for the Trawler-man.
Annually on the first day of the year, "Nana Glass" would sacrifice a stranger, usually a delivery person, vagrant, or other unfortunate traveler. She abducted them and prepared them by piercing their skin with silver hooks, covering them with mud, etching prayer marks on their skin, and covering their head with a cloth sack. She then chained them to the posts at the bottom of her garden, also covered in prayer marks, at the tide line of the marsh. She would sing songs of the faith to "comfort" the sacrifices as they suffered a slow death of gradual drowning and/or being eaten alive by the Trawler-man's "angels" (crabs, crawfish, etc.).
Notable Events[]
When Carpenter was young, the police raided Nana Glass's house. Nana Glass shot at the police from a window with her hunting rifle, until they battered down the door. She ran outside to the wooden jetties over the marsh at the bottom of her garden (assumedly, the same location she performed sacrifices). She sang as she ran, just as she sang routinely in the garden. The song as Carpenter remembers was:
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As she ran through the garden and down to the jetties, the police shot her multiple times with shotguns. Nana Glass continued singing all the while. Carpenter believes she sang right to her last breath: "Calling out to the Trawler-man, as she bore him her life’s last offering." [1]
Nana Glass tried to sacrifice Carpenter and Em after the death of their parents. They were not taken by the Trawler-man.[2]
One night, Em returned home late and Carpenter was tasked with offering the Trawler-man a sacrifice instead of him. Carpenter recalls this night as one of the most shameful of her life.[3]
Connections[]
- Mallory Glass is Adelina's granddaughter, who she raises after the death of her and Em's parents[2]. Mallory grows to resent her grandmother after being made to offer a sacrifice to the Trawler-man.[3]
- Em Glass is Adelina's grandson, who she raises after the death of his and Mallory's parents[2]. Little is known about their relationship, but Em would leave and get high which suggests a somewhat strained relationship.[3]
Trivia[]
- Nana Glass, along with two other prominent parental figures in the series, is representative of a human-to-deity relationship. She is a wrathful, imperious god who gives us a sense of confident purpose but punishes us when we stray beyond it.[4]