“You can’t change the past, but the past can change you.” At age eighteen, Will is on top of the world, “the top prospect” as told by the dean at Eclipse College. While visiting the college, Will stumbles upon a strange “Dreaming Tree,” which is somehow tied to his life, and a mysterious bum who is no bum at all, but rather the essence of something beyond. The bum proceeds to give Will a card with a time on it, “A time that will change your life.” Surprisingly, something does happen to Will that changes his life for the better at the exact moment on the card. As the story continues, Will receives more cards, only this time tragedies start to occur. Will finds himself in a struggle to keep his dreams alive after he suffers more traumas, all predicted by the bum who claims, “The dreaming tree will die, as do they all, and when that occurs, William Payne will fall!” In the end, the question of whether destiny controls our lives, or if we control our own fates, is answered in the most shocking way.