On the far northwest coast of Tasmania at Cape Grimm lies the isolated and idiosyncratic community of Skye, which practises a religion that reveres the imagination. One clear evening in 1992 all the inhabitants enter the church hall, where they are locked in and burned alive. They have been persuaded to do this by a young man called Caleb Mean - also known as El Nino, the Christ Child. The only survivors of the fire are Caleb, his lover Virginia, and their baby daughter Golden.

How could such a thing happen? Do the answers lie in the history of Skye itself, founded by the unlikely survivors of a 19th century shipwreck? Or do the only real clues lie in the dark truths of fairytales?