A person of Neshiyah
Itai Eshel, child
Child
Itai Eshel
Child, about 11 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.
Itai Eshel is a small, sturdy child with river-damp hair and the attentive stare of someone who has just heard a secret they are not supposed to repeat. At three, they are happiest crouched on the bank, tossing pebbles into the current, watching the rings spread and vanish. They have a habit of touching things twice—once to know, once to be sure—and they trust the baker’s wife, the ferryman, and any dog that wags its tail. They want the fog to lift, not because they fear it, but because they dream of a horizon. The town smiles at Itai’s quiet certainty, the way they say “the fog is just fog” like a lullaby, and wonders, gently, what else the child knows.
Temperament
Curious to a fault; trusting, within reason; hard to anger; friendly enough; given to sitting by the river.
What people say
Itai Eshel believes what everyone believes: the fog is the edge of the world, and the fields need working whether it is true or not.
The dream
Since the morning they were born they have carried a sentence in a voice like their own: “the fog is just fog.”
What the record shows
- day 41 Uriel Eshel says that their new son, Itai Eshel, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
- day 41 A son, Itai Eshel, was born to Uriel Eshel.