happened in less than an instant."

"That's right," Lin said. "He should be...."

"As a matter of fact," Phil said, "I think he should. So it worked after all. I'd really hoped it would. Or maybe ... but I think it worked."

"What worked?" Lin and Dorothy demanded together.

"He must have tossed that paper into the flame by now, unless he read what was on it," Phil said. He spread his hands apologetically. "You see I knew this couldn't go on forever. The only way to fight the supernatural is to outsmart it, I figured. So I wrote on it. Simple as that. I bore down good too so that if the ink came off, the writing would still be creased in good. On the theory that whatever was on that paper would come true when it got burned."

"What did you write?" Again Lin and Dorothy spoke in unison.

"I didn't have time for anything involved," Phil apologized. "I rather expected him to be after me before I could go far."

"What did you write?"

"Just one word," Phil said, "Cancelled."

"Cancelled?" Lin and Dorothy echoed dumbly, then, comprehendingly, "Cancelled!"

"Sure," Phil said. "That way when it was burned it wouldn't do anything. They'll have to start over on you."

They stared at him wordlessly.

"It must have been burned by now," he added weakly. "So my scheme worked."

They turned their heads and looked into each other's eyes. Two ghostly windshields obscured their vision. The tables and people about them faded, to be replaced by ghostly pines, a more solid concrete highway.

They stared into each other's eyes, knowing all that had been, feeling it slip away.

But abruptly it vanished and they were looking at each other across the table while a waiter asked them if they wanted another drink. For a long second their minds hovered in that other stream of time before the realization came that it was over and they were safe.

"Another?" Lin said. "Yes. Sure. You want one, Dorothy?"

She nodded and watched the waiter's back as he hurried away.

"You two look as if you'd seen a 

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