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“Do we give Anna a new name or–?” Jen asked.

“It’s hard.” George shifted in his seat, “We don’t really know how many there are, or if it's an equal share or if there’s a primary personality?”

It was late at night and Anna had fully gone to sleep hours ago, so it was time for the parents to chat. They were seated at the kitchen table with a small lamp used for light. They both had a crochet blanket over them made of simple dirty brown wool.

“Hrmm…” Jen brought the cup of hot water to her lips and took a sip. “I still think it’s the latter, so let’s go off that assumption until proven otherwise. If otherwise, let’s just stick with Anna.”

“That’s fair.”

Jen didn’t know if the kids knew that they noticed, but they figured it out pretty fast.

For some, Anna finally moving around would be enough to ignore any strange behaviours. But for Jen, a lover of weird things, she just noticed all the differences between the personalities more when they started to appear after some time of observing.

At first, she did just assumed that they were mood swings, George thought the same, which they discussed during some of their previous occasional night talks.

“But are you sure there are only three?” George asked, “If there are more, or more arrive… I think they just might name themselves.”

“Well that would lead to more likely the latter possibility,” Jen replied, “Which we are currently ignoring cause that’s easier to deal with if that is the case.”

These were Jen’s observations.

Personality One: Appeared the most frequently, which made Jen initially assume it was Anna’s main personality. However, it only really appeared with priority in the mornings or when hanging out with other kids. With bright eyes, it loved to run around, and it was the only one that called her Mum properly after learning how to speak.

Personality Two: Often appeared during story time, when it was time to talk about something important, or during lessons. They walked calmly and looked uninterested 99% of the time, but there was a sparkle that appeared during the drama novels in story time.

Personality Three: Also known as the shy one by Jen. This one didn’t appear very frequently and used few words and instead tended to use gestures. They mostly appeared during story time about 40% of the time with personality two taking up the other 60%. With tired eyes which initially made it hard to tell if they were a personality, or if Anna was just tired. However, after Jen realised there were two personalities, she started to notice Personality Three more.

Outside of the specific times when they tended to be out, for matters like lunch, dinner and midday activities, there was a 40% 40% 20% split between the three of them.

There were some other minor differences as well.

Jen excitedly blushed, “Ah this is so exciting.” Thinking about having three children in one, was something some parents might be concerned about, but it just made Jen happy.

The process of uncovering their personalities was also extremely fun for Jen, who never got to experience this feeling outside of reading. Jen thought, I can’t express the joy of this to them, George or our child… no children. Argh! So embarrassing.

George joked, “Who would’ve known your favourite type of book would influence our child.”

Jen replied, “Don’t blame my reading habits, they don’t deserve it.”

Jen loved her books, even if she didn’t own many. But she did borrow them very frequently, from the town chief who basically had the town’s library, or from the town which was a two-hour walk away.

However, her favourite types of books was what she labelled “Mind Confuddlement”. Nothing crazy, just stories that confused her or involved the mind. Multiple personalities, multiple identities, hallucinations, delusion, illusions, mysteries, dreams, and multi-layered plots. Honestly, the self-made category was too big.

George returned a light laugh, “But I need to ask, when do you want to talk to her about it?”

“Let’s just wait until they bring it up, I’m sure it will happen soon… unless it’s one of those stories where each side doesn’t know about the other… Wait! Calm down Jen, you’ve seen her talk to herself before, well what looked like talking to themself… It should happen soon.” Jen managed to stop her ramble from spiralling out of control.

Funny enough, they hadn’t reached the point yet because of Jen adding books to the cycle, but Rose Flower actually had a multiple personality concept in it. It was revealed in the final chapter that Rose and Flower were in fact the same person, but only Rose knew about it.

George decided to add a little spark to the fire again, to mess with his wife, “What if they think everyone has multiple… themselves?”

Jen stiffly smiled, “I’ll give it about two years…” As she hoped it would never reach that long. They should reveal it in about two months… right?