John Green is a retired Navy Captain who now operates a fishing troller outside of Greendale. Calling it the “devil’s sidewalk”, he hasn’t set foot on dry land in years and refuses to speak to his brother Arius. Earth Brown is the nickname of a visiting college activist who is almost literally entranced by Sun Green one night in a bar. He’s on his way up to Alaska, to protest drilling on the National Preserve. Mahalia Cross is Sun’s great-grandmother, a superstitious hermit and a witchdoctor, by all accounts. According to Arius, she has an old shack up in the mountains, though no one’s sure if she’s even still alive.