Page 188 of Sinister

I’m not sure why I don’t just go ahead and tell him everything. But I’m still in the process of figuring it out. And dream-Sin . . . I still don’t know who or what he was. And if I’m completely honest, a part of me wonders if the man I keep dreaming about isn’t Arnoult.

Dream-Sin was associated with that Society. He was involved in all those rituals, one way or another. And the way Snowden and my dream-father were talking about Arnoult . . . What if he is Arnoult?

But why would he want to possess your unborn child then?

“I was wondering if I could find this symbol online. But it’s not anywhere. I’ve probably imagined the whole thing,” I add with a nervous laugh. “Hormones and all that.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Those are some very exact details.”

“What else could it be, though?”

“A past life?” he wonders.

“A past . . . life?”

“You wouldn’t be the only one to remember bits and pieces from your past life. Here,” he says as he grabs his phone and searches up reincarnation. Story after story comes up, of people who remember their past lives with startling details.

It’s one thing for my dreams to be mere hallucinations brought on by the many traumatic experiences I’ve had recently. It’s quite another to think of them as real.

“Did you see anyone else in your dreams?” he asks.

“Anyone else? Like who?”

He shrugs. “Anyone else that seemed familiar.”

“I’m not sure,” I answer slowly, averting my eyes.

“Are you sure? Perhaps⁠—”

“I think we should go back to bed,” I declare, thoroughly spooked by yet another complication in my already far too complicated life. “Let’s go to sleep.”

I get up and head back to the bedroom. But he doesn’t follow. Looking back, I see him still staring at my little drawing, his expression a combination of sadness and wistfulness that tugs at my heart.

“Sin?” I call out.

“It’s really pretty, Petra,” he whispers, but he’s still not looking at me.

55

PETRA

After spending a nearly sleepless night wondering if the you-know-who is the reincarnation of my boyfriend’s ancestor—or, even worse, my past-life boyfriend—I wake up blurry-headed and groggy.

In the days following all the unsettling revelations about Arnoult’s cult and his maniac deathbed promise to be reborn and smite his enemies, I do my best to convince myself that there’s no such thing as reincarnation. That I’m just overreacting to the stress and uncertainty that have been insistently seeping into my life.

During quiet moments between classes, in the shower, in the tranquil pockets of the school library, I keep repeating the same mantra to myself, hoping it will stick.

“It’s not possible. It can’t happen.”

Yet in the back of my mind, a thread of fear runs unbroken.

Because no matter how we see it, Harry and Edwin were killed, in brutal ways. And their deaths were no random acts of violence; if Arnoult’s demonic rituals are resurfacing, no one in St. Anselm Hall or the whole town is truly safe.

On another Friday, Sin and I meet at the diner again.

The smells of cinnamon and hot chocolate make me feel cozy and relaxed, despite the troubling thoughts and visions that have been plaguing my sleep as of late.

Sin’s arms around my shoulders, draped over me like a heavy woolen coat, keep my heart beating steadily. The you-know-who feels content, too, from the way he’s not shifting around like a fat cat in a backpack.