A person of Neshiyah
Zev Ronen, child
Child
Zev Ronen
Child, about 5 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.
Zev Ronen is four years old, a compact child with a farmer's square hands and a stare that holds longer than it should. He follows the older boys to the riverbank, not playing, but sitting on his heels in the mud, watching the water slide past the same way he watches a broken gate hinge—waiting for it to do something wrong. When a stranger offers a sweet, he takes it, but he does not eat it until the giver has walked away. He has never once asked about the fog. The town knows him as Jethro's boy, the one who talks in his sleep, and the mothers lower their voices when they say he repeats a sentence that should not fit a child's mouth. What he wants is to be allowed to stay up past dark, alone, by the river, where the fog comes in thin and the water goes on.
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
Zev Ronen 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 47 Jethro Ronen says that their new son, Zev Ronen, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
- day 47 A son, Zev Ronen, was born to Jethro Ronen.