A person of Neshiyah
Jael Segal, child
Child
Jael Segal
Child, about 14 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.
Jael Segal is a small, sturdy presence in the fields, six years old and rarely seen without a cluster of older children or a dog trailing them. Their hands are perpetually busy—pulling a weed, stacking stones, smoothing a furrow—while their eyes watch everything with a calm, unblinking patience. They do not ask questions, but they also do not accept answers readily; Jael tests a thing’s truth by doing it twice. Anger is a slow, rare tide in them, but their stillness is never peace. They are always moving, always in company, yet somehow apart. The town notes their quiet usefulness and the odd, private phrase they sometimes hum under their breath. What Jael wants is simple: to see the fog lift, just once, and find it is only weather.
Temperament
Content not to ask; slow to believe anyone; hard to anger; always in company; never still.
What people say
Jael Segal 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 52 Jael Segal the child fell ill with the valley fever and lost three days to it.
- day 38 Elam Segal says that their new son, Jael Segal, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
- day 38 A son, Jael Segal, was born to Elam Segal.