A person of Neshiyah
Yonah Sharon, child
Child
Yonah Sharon
Child, about 14 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.
Yonah Sharon is a compact, serious child of seven, with a scabbed knee always in view and hair that stands up no matter how often it is flattened. They are rarely alone—some cousin or neighbor’s child trails them to the riverbank, where Yonah sits with a stick, poking the mud and watching the water carry twigs away, not speaking much. At the mill on day 44, they traded blows with Jesse Nir over a grain sack, fists tight and face red, then forgot it by supper. Yonah wants the fog to lift, just once, to see what is behind it, though they would never say so aloud. The town sees them as stubborn, quick to anger, and oddly watchful for one so young. Tobiah’s boy, they say, has old eyes.
Temperament
Curious when something is in front of them; slow to believe anyone; hot-tempered; always in company; given to sitting by the river.
What people say
Yonah Sharon 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 44 Jesse Nir and Yonah Sharon came to blows at the mill over nothing much.
- day 38 Tobiah Sharon says that their new son, Yonah Sharon, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
- day 38 A son, Yonah Sharon, was born to Tobiah Sharon.