The End.

Twenty-seven days after she’d written the first line on that fateful evening, those words appeared like a miracle. She took a deep breath and exhaled a long sigh as she patted the huge stack of four hundred and forty-nine pages. The happiness in her heart morphed into a smile she felt in every cell of her being.

“I’m done!” she shouted, leaning back and waving her arms in the air.

Emily, who’d taken up residence beneath her desk where Nem had placed a blanket for her, jumped up into her lap. Perhaps sensing Nem’s excitement, she purred like a motorboat.

“My heart’s in this story, Em. Your namesake would understand that. If I never do another thing in my life, I can die happy.”

Later in the kitchen as she sipped her coffee, her gaze fixed on the pile of papers. She sensed a magic had happened without the diary but now she faced another challenge.

“Okay, now what to do with you?”

This whole adventure hadn’t begun with any real thoughts of publishing the book. Yes, she’d jokingly dreamed of seeing her name up there on a best sellers’ list, but she had never felt confident she possessed the ability to finish it. She hadn’t truly dared to dream this far.

She would admit though, as completion of the book loomed, she had begun to imagine her book sitting alongside novels on the Bountiful Books best sellers’ shelf. The thought of readers entering her world awakened a real desire deep inside to see that happen.

As she lay sleepless in bed that night, Nem saw herself seated at a desk between book shelves, pens in a pot, with a line of fans stretching out through the doors. All had come for her and her book. There she was too, interviewed on TV and radio, witty, amusing and charming. And traveling on tours, staying in luxury hotels, visiting bookstores where she would read from her novel, glancing up every few sentences at the hushed audience.

She told herself this mega-success was rare, one in a million. Didn’t they always say the final ingredient of a successful best seller came down to luck?

The diary flashed into her mind and even though she wanted to make herself go to sleep, she sat up and leaned over to her bedside table. Her hand fumbled with the lamp switch, but she found it and then opened the drawer. She reached inside and pulled out the book, then laid back, resting it on her chest, pressed against her heart.

“Dream a little dream,” she whispered.

No. Absolutely not.

She’d made a promise to herself to never use the power for anything like this. And she wouldn’t. There might be no need. Everything had been going well, so who was to say that wouldn’t continue.

Nem turned off the light and settled back under the bedclothes, still clutching the diary. She imagined herself standing on a high platform above a crowd. Beneath her fingertips, the green book hummed and grew warm, but she didn’t feel the sweet sensation.