Moon River Blaze

A change came in disguise of Ms. O'Brien dying of breast cancer last summer. Austin, the only child and last surviving member of the Renwick family, blasted indie rock on her headphones as she hopped off the city bus and proceeded through the suburban neighborhood to the house she now owned through inheritance.

She strolled down the familiar streets with a dismissive attitude toward the neighbors who passed her nosey looks and whispers to one another. Yes. Her father was shot in the line of duty when she was in high school, and her mother lost a battle to cancer last year. Yes. She's the only Renwick left, and -Yes, she's all alone now. She pressed and held the volume up button on her iPhone, but the speakers are already maxed out.

"Stupid thing." She sighed to herself.

As she approached the front of her house, she grabbed the mail from the mailbox and flipped through the various bills and final notices. She continues to browse to the end of the stack without care until she gets to the last envelope. It was Lilac Purple with a slight glitter in the ink. The front of it had no return address, only her name and address written by hand in fine writing. Austin flips the envelope to its backside and sees a curious imprinted logo. It was a crescent moon over three ocean waves.

"Whatever." She thinks as she smashes the stack of mail in one hand and heads to the front door.

Once on the porch, she draws her keys from her bag to enter, but her eyes catch onto a brown paper box placed underneath a porch chair. She goes over and slides the box out with her foot and sees the same crescent moon and three waves logo. She studies the sides of the box, looking for Amazon stickers but sees nothing but the symbol. She considers grabbing it for a second but instead gives it a quick - Umph! - as she kicks it back under the chair and goes inside.

Once inside, she flicks a light switch on and off. No power. Punishment for three months overdue.

Later that night, Austin sits on the shaggy rug of her living room basking in the warmth of the wood-burning fireplace as she browses through printed photos of her and her family. She recklessly gulps from a Liter of Jim Beam that's just under the half-empty mark. Tears roll down her face as she scanned through the photos but her numbness doesn't allow her to weep.

Suddenly, with much conviction and grit, Austin stands up with a handful of photos and tosses them into the flames of the fire. She sits and watches a moment before turning back with a burst of ambition and begins grabbing all the loose photos and scrapbooks she can and throwing them into the glowing ember. She runs upstairs to her mother's bedroom that still hasn't been touched since her passing and grabs a pillow from the bed. Austin removes the pillow from the case and throws it across the room before grabbing the framed photos from the nightstand and dresser and shoving them into the pillowcase. She works her way down the upstairs hall - snatching portraits and bagging them all. Then she quickly hurries down the carpeted steps before losing her footing and rolling on her back a quarter of the way down.

Austin maniacally gets to her feet and grabs the pillowcase - neglecting the photos that popped out during the fall. She storms back toward the fireplace grabbing more photos from end tables along the way. The stuffed case is tossed into the fire causing one of the burning logs to roll out onto the brick. Austin studies the log and then kicks the log onto the carpet as fibers begin to ignite.

Eureka!

She hurries to the garage and picks through red gas cans near the gardening tools before finding one with gas inside. As she returns she begin pouring the gasoline down the hall but runs out as she gets to the front door. She tosses the can in frustration before seeing the mail on the dining table. She walks over to the mail and picks up the sparkling purple letter. She carries it over to the burning log now wreaking a little havoc in the corner of the room as a pocket of the carpet burns and dips a corner of the letter in the blaze. After it lights she stands and starts to the gasoline trail in the hall but the fire blows out.

Damn.

She quickly goes back and repeats the process and the corner of the envelope lights ablaze once more. She starts to the hall but the flame blows out yet again.

"What the hell?" She says before tearing open the envelope and pulling out the weighted Lilac paper which simply read: Welcome to Wonder World Austin Renwick. From the Moon River Blaze.

Confused, she ponders as she accidentally knocks over her open liter of Jim Beam she left on the rug.

"No! No!" she lets out before throwing the letter down and dropping to the ground to steal a few chugs from the bottle. After a few gulps she exhales with a sense of relief before looking over to the Lilac Letter she tossed on the burning log. The flames of the log were beginning to die down along with the embers burning through the carpet. She frowns her face in bewilderment and looks over to the front door.

Austin goes outside and grabs the package from beneath the chair before returning to the house. She stands in the entry and rips open the packaging to find a Lilac-colored smoked glass box. She lifts the door of the box and pulls out a crystal ball.

"There were only a thousand of those made ya know." a voice says.

"Oh my god!" Austin shrieks cutting her eyes to the gas-covered hall.

There stands a slender man. Wide-eyed, handsome, short-haired, in a fitted woven vest like something she'd seen out of Star Wars.

"Careful." The man tells her. "I don't think the Majesty will be sending any replacement relics."

"What are you doing in my house?" She demands.

"I'd ask you the same but your intentions are a bit obvious." He says while studying the mess she made.

"I don't have any money." She pleads.

"Naturally. Your mother stopped paying the 25 dollar life insurance payments so...you were left with nothing. But you can rest assured I'm not here for money and I'm not here to hurt you." He insists.

"Who are you?" Asks Austin.

"I am Regal. You're higher self and warden to the infinite divine intelligence."

"Oh. Okay." Austin says pleasantly before dropping the crystal all and running to the front door.

She opens the door but it's blocked by a red brick wall.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: Wherever you go - we go. One of the stipulations in the rental agreement." Regal tells her.

"This isn't real. This isn't happening. I am so drunk. You're not here." Austin reasons with herself.

"Maybe you should go upstairs and sleep off the bourbon. We'll talk more in the morning over waffles. How's that sound?" says Regal.

"What do you want?" Austin asks keeping her distance.

"I want what all seers want - to help."

"I don't need your help." She says.

" It appears you do. Unless you planned on torching the place in a bit of rage like a psychotic person of course." Regal tells her. "Speaking of which-

Regal waves his hand in the direction of the fireplace and the flames die out to ashes. The crystal ball glows a lilac color from the ground.

"It's safe to pick up," Regal tells her.

"I don't want it." She says.

"Austin, your power's been shut off and you're trapped in a dark house with a strange man whom you know not the intentions of. Pick up the light." Regal tells Austin once more.

She knows he's right and picks up the crystal ball - still keep her distance.

"Good girl," Regal says. "Now, you have questions. Ask away."

"Are you gonna kill me?" Austin asks.

"Oh for God's sake, No."

"What are you? What am I holding, and why are you in my house? And why are there bricks in my door?"

"I am another element of you. All of your hunches, your intuitions, and your gut feelings - that was me. Some people call it their guardian angel, some call it their high self. I prefer, Warden of Infinite, but you can call me Regal." Regal says.

"Ok. I think I registered some of that. What is this? A crystal ball?" She asks.

"That is a globe with your consciousness inside of it. Think of it as a belief deposit box. Everything that you truly believe gets stored automatically in that ball and the magic in that ball sees to it that your belief is made in reality." He answers. "Try using it to turn the lights on."

"I don't know how to do that." She says.

"Just tell yourself that the power is back on and imagine yourself standing here with the lights on." Regal responds.

Hesitantly she looks down at the ball and thinks about the lights being on, and after a moment, the lights all turn on. Regal smiles with joy.

"Not bad for a first-timer." Praised Regal.

Austin looks around at the illuminated house.

"That's nice." She says before fainting onto the ground.

Regal looks down at her lifeless body.

"Well, if you're already comfortable, I reckon I'll take the upstairs bed then." He says before heading up the stairs toward Austin's room. "We'll speak in the morning, Love."