Mitch couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the child’s harsh self-critique.
“What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer.
“Where is this house? Is this your house growing up?”
She stared back at him blankly.
“Did you have a tire swing in your yard?”
Again nothing.
“Is this your mother?” He pointed to the woman with the triangle dress and big ears. Still no response.
“Is this you?”
She nodded.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the smoke pouring from the small box on the countertop.
“That’s a toaster,” she answered glumly, clearly disappointed that he didn’t recognize it straightaway.
“I knew that,” Mitch said, trying for corrective action. “I meant why is it smoking?”
“The toast is burning.”
“Who are you?” Mitch asked again, his voice a bit pleading.
The girl eyed him crossly, like he should have known.
Too fast. Too much. Mitch pointed to a bathroom she’d drawn in the upstairs part of the house with a tub full of blue water. Strokes of blue crayon spilled from a faucet, an indication the water was still running.
“Is the girl in the kitchen going to take a bath?” Mitch asked.
She shook her head. “Not yet. She has to finish her dinner first.”
There was a bedroom next to the bathroom, and inside she’d drawn a second little girl who also had pigtails. This girl was given a yellow dress, done in the same triangle fashion as the outfit of the other girl. She had on a silver necklace with an anchor pendant attached. The pendant was supersized, but that was probably due to the challenge of drawing to scale. In one hand, she held a blue rectangle, a book, Mitch presumed.
“Who’s this?” Mitch asked.
“That’s me,” she said, as if the answer should have been obvious.
“I thought you were downstairs having breakfast,” said Mitch.
“It’s just a dumb drawing,” she answered testily. “I should rip it up and start again. It’s terrible.”
“No, no,” Mitch said. “I like it very much. You’re a very clever girl. Now, will you tell me your name?”
She hesitated, but eventually said, “I’m Chloe. See, I signed my initials.”
She moved her index finger to a patch of side yard, below the tree with many crooked branches, and touched the anchor symbol she’d drawn. Then, using blue crayon, she went over the lines until they darkened, making clear the letters C and F in her stylized signature:
“C. F.,” she said proudly, in case Mitch hadn’t seen them for himself. “See? Chloe Francone.”
“Chloe. That’s a nice name.”
While this wasn’t definitive proof in Mitch’s mind of Penny having DID （she could have known what he was after, which alter he thought he might reach） it was certainly a compelling demonstration. Either way, make-believe or not, Mitch wasn’t fazed at meeting Chloe, nor was he shocked that she’d regressed in age. It could be the stimulation of the crayons opened the gateway in Penny’s subconscious for a switch to take place, and the alter that appeared was of an age where those crayons would have been appreciated and enjoyed. She was acting ten years old, or thereabouts, the same age that Grace said the anchor symbol began to make an appearance on her drawings.
“Chloe, do you know your mother’s name?”
“My mama’s name is Grace. My daddy’s name is Arthur. He makes pizza for a living.”
Is Arthur … makes pizza … all present tense, because in her reality, at her age of ten or so, Arthur’s still alive in her mind.
If this is make-believe it is certainly very consistent.
“What’s that under your hand?” Mitch asked, pointing to the lower portion of the house. He could see she’d drawn a basement in black and gray crayon, but she was hiding what was in it.
A slip of a smile came to Chloe’s face.
She lifted her hand slowly, eyes never leaving his. Mitch’s focus went to a figure Chloe had drawn down in the basement: a woman on her side, two black Xs for eyes. Dead. Although this woman wore the same triangle-shaped blue dress as the woman in the kitchen above, only one of them had Grace’s trademark ears.
Mitch thought: Rachel.
Next to the body, Chloe had drawn a crooked jug filled with a liquid depicted in yellow crayon.
Ammonia.
“How old are you, Chloe?” Mitch asked.
“I’m nine,” Chloe said sweetly. She got up from her seat. “Who are you, anyway? Where am I?” she asked, looking anxiously around the stark room as her calm veneer faded like a mirage.