The following morning I woke up at my house in Philadelphia. I rolled out of bed and wondered how I’d gotten there. I made myself coffee and went outside to get the newspaper. Along the way I glanced at the clock and saw it was nine o’clock, a full two hours past the time I once had to be at work. It felt nice to be in control of my life and finances.

Outside I picked up the copy of The Friendly Philly off the step, went inside, and sat before the white breakfast table. My house felt wrong, but I didn’t know why. This was my house, wasn’t it? Yes, I remembered it. I was a journalist and—

That’s when it hit me. It all came back to me as from a dream: Peoria and Destiny’s Price. I remembered the mansion in Philadelphia I had written into my story, but I wasn’t in it. I was in the house I lived in as a journalist before I’d changed the story of my life.

I glanced down at the paper and read the headlines: Clinton Hopeful! At the top I read the date. I flipped through it and saw an article I’d written about pet owners, and I felt my heart speed up. I’d written that article as a journalist but not as an editor and owner of the newspaper.

“What’s happened?” I gasped.

The editor of the newspaper had his own traditional column in the Classifieds of The Friendly Philly, and I read the name at the top: Spenser Williamson III. Somehow I had been knocked out of the story I’d written for myself using Destiny’s Price. I was no longer the editor, but had become the mundane journalist I’d been before. I ran to the bathroom mirror and found the handsome face with high cheekbones and dark hair was gone, replaced by a slightly rounded average face and brown hair. A cold sweat of dread crept up my spine and I shivered.

Had it all been a dream? It had been only a night’s sleep and everything had changed, been rewritten.

I sat back down at the kitchen table and read the article I’d written as a lowly journalist. Someone knocked at the front door. I stood so fast the chair fell behind me.

I opened the front door and saw Simon with a worried expression. He glanced around nervous as if someone spied upon him.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he stepped inside. “But we didn’t know what they did until it was too late.”

“Whatwho did?” I asked as he rushed past me.

He glanced around as if to make sure no one was there to jump him. He even looked inside my closet.

“The others,” he answered satisfied the coast was clear. He shook his head. “Haven’t you ever wondered why there are wars in the world? What about disease and pestilence and famine?” I was too flabbergasted to speak. “We Storytellers write destiny for ourselves and others, right?”

I nodded and walked back to the kitchen. I righted the chair I’d knocked over, poured Simon a cup of coffee, and I handed it to him when he joined me. My hand didn’t tremble—I had become acclimated to the complicated insanity of rewritten stories. He took the coffee and sat across from me at the table.

“It’s all hit me so hard and so fast,” I admitted, “That I never had time to think about such things.”