[Braucherei & Juggalos are Mystics, too.]

Valec was woken up by new voices outside not very long after Uncle Glaasya visited. Uncle Raven was back though; his hair was unbound and long, and the braids that Glaasya had woven in so carefully [while inhabiting the same body prior] were beginning to fray.

“THE GREAT WHITE MILENKO JUST GOT OUT OF THE TOW TRUCK!!!!” Valec exclaimed, and sure enough, Raven pulled back the curtain to see a man in a sand covered white dress with a matching turban shaking hands warmly with Dr. Haverford Gladwyn, who had arrived earlier.

…Next to the other Uncle Raven. The short one, who was wearing a suit and by the expression on his face seemed to be ‘someplace else,’ deeply uncomfortable, and looking for an exit.

“CAW CAW CAW,” stated the long haired Raven from the tiny goetia’s window.

The man with the shorter hair and glasses snapped out of whatever reverie held him to reply “CAW CAW,” back. Uncle Raven then pointed at the side door through the rock & crystal point garden, and the man below shrugged, extracted himself from the conversation he clearly had no participation in, and the sound of the screen door opening then closing could be heard, then a jog up the side stairs, two at a time.

“Caw?” asked the younger man.

“Caw,” replied Uncle Raven, who followed it with an excellent hug. “Val, this is the other Uncle Raven, the one from Pennsylvania.”

“Where’s the wife and your other half, Mani?” asked the visitor.

“Kitty is in bed, Mani is back in Pennsylvania again. What name are you using this week? Having two Ravens in one house is going to be a mess.”

“Atticus works for now. I doubt anyone else in the entirety of Arizona is ‘Atticus’ at the moment… And it seems I have another godchild, apparently. Namaste, Val,” he said, as he extended his hand to the child wearing the juggalo pajamas.

“How did you know my name?”

“Easy. Damian named all his children Val. He said it would make it easier to find care for you when he’s at work.”

Valec, still wearing her hatchetman pajamas, asked, “Daddy doesn’t work right now though, he’s in prison. Are you my Godfather?”

“According to your father, I guess. Can’t really claim to be a good one if I ain’t around. I can do my best right now though,” replied Atticus, then to Raven, “How long is Damian serving this time?”

“He’s in and out- at this point acclimating to civilian life- it just ain’t working…”

“Raven, bro, do you mind if I re-educate your goddaughter? I don’t have NDAs.”

“Our Goddaughter.”

“Okay, whatever, Comrade.” Atticus sat down on the edge of the bed and continued, “Your father is like a super-spy with the most dangerous assignment: he keeps the good people inside of prisons safe.”

“He did say he beats people up a lot in there.”

“Likely true. Would your dad be able to beat up normal people without ending up in prison?”

“THAT’S HOW HE GOT TO PRISON!”

“Exactly!” replied Atticus. “Your dad spends soooooo much time beating up bad guys and getting rewarded for it inside prison that when he’s someplace where that is not legal, he does not have ways to fight back. In this world here, where people solve problems with passive aggression, ignoring things, or talking to lawyers slowly, there is no place for people covered in tattoos who solve problems quickly. Why did he leave last time?”

“He hit my mom in the face and broke her teeth when he found out one of her boyfriends sold all my dirty underwear and she let him video my bathtimes.”

“How old were you?”

“Maybe four or five.”

“Astaghfirallah.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means God forgive me. I wish I knew that before. Did you get hurt?”

“I got new underwear and I get to live with Uncle Raven & Aunt Kitty… But I miss my Dad.”

“Do you miss your mom?”

“I didn’t see her much, she was always on dates or getting her hair or nails done. I always just had a bedroom here, and now Mom doesn’t even live in the country anymore. Sometimes she sends money, but she doesn’t call much. Her other boyfriends don’t like that she has me.”

“She doesn’t have you, sweetie. Your Dad loves you and he’s in prison. I never met your mother, but Uncle Raven & Aunt Kitty are your real parents in every way that counts.”

“And what does a Godfather do?”

“What I can.”

Raven cleared his throat. “Your Godfather sometimes writes your bedtime stories.”

“REALLY??? CAN YOU PROVE IT? TELL ME A STORY, PWEAASE???” the little tabby kitten exclaimed.

Atticus sighed as Raven snuck off to bed, while the Shaykh & the Philosopher continued their conversation outside without ceasing.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Atticus took off his jacket and draped it over a chair back. One of his suspenders fell off his shoulders, his tie was crooked, and he was exhausted.

Valec the kitten was fully awake at one AM, overstimulated, and as much as Mango loved children, Garrett did not know enough about Juggalo culture to explain the Great Milenko, why he was or was not the Great Milenko, and might actually become deeply offended if greeted like a juggalo. The solution was not to explain why Garrett was dressed like Milenko. It was to lend Garrett some clothes until no one could possibly mistake him for yet another murder-clown, among many, in Tempe.

Atticus pulled out his phone and scrolled through his drafts.

“I have a half finished story here. It’s called ‘The Prince, the Wolf, & the Stars Below.’ Do you want to hear it?”

“Does the Wolf win?”

“The Wolf is my older brother. Of course he always wins.”

The kitten crawled back into bed and Atticus set the covers around her snugly, placing a stuffed winged wolf plushie from the dresser nearby beside her as a prop, and began.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

### “The Prince, the Wolf, & the Stars Below”

“There is said to be a bridge that connects the world of humans to heaven. For three seasons, the bridge is no wider than a hair, and this is when the bad people try to cross it. They have no patience, and below the bridge is hellfire and terrible monsters.

“For part of the year, the bridge is wide, but slippery, made of beautiful ice that reflects every color like rainbow inclusions in quartz. This is where the honest & careful people cross. Patient people who arrive at the wrong time simply camp, or do other things, until the ice returns. The impatient, the stupid, and the delusional always try to cross immediately and fall to the monsters below.”

“What happens when the bridge starts melting?” asked Val, clutching her little stuffed wolf.

“Ah, even that is prepared for,” replied Atticus. “In the middle of the bridge, at the halfway point, is a tower, and in that tower is a Prince. When the melting season comes, he sometimes chooses to escort people to his tower directly instead of them falling through melting ice.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It is, but not in the way you think. The ice never breaks for the Prince, but the people do.”

“A cat can always walk a wire,” said Val.

“Exactly. And people are not cats. Once you help a human being they believe it is the same as them conquering you or enslaving you forever to serve them, even if they would have died to monsters without your assistance.”

“How does that break anything?”

“It breaks everything. Let me continue… The tower of the Prince is small, more like a waystation to Someplace Else. It is well provisioned with excellent snacks, feather pillows, and little crimbo lights that look like stars in every room instead of lamps. He even has a real bathtub and a shower like a waterfall.

“Sometimes, he travels at the first sign of thaw to Guide someone. It has only happened three times, and each time he succeeded and he failed.”

“How does that work?”

“Like getting an A+ on a project that gets stolen by people, chewed on, soaked in a river, then returned. The grade was good but there is nothing good to show for it.”

“I would cry.”

“The Prince wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because monsters drink tears and he doesn’t want monsters inside his tower. Human beings can never turn into angels or goetia, but they could certainly be monsters. Ask your dad the next time he calls you. Damian can explain it with fewer words.”

“So, the Prince-”

“What was the Prince’s name…? Um… drat. I hadn’t thought about that, so let’s make my own Uncle happy and call him ‘Prince Mithras.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“Friendship. Anyway. Prince Mithras was once told by Canadians there was a man who they felt deserved help before the bridge melted. So, he traveled all the way from the Midpoint tower to the East, where he found the man immediately. He had hair like a wolf, an eyepatch, and he spoke in riddles and circles. Human beings had surrounded him and his soul was nervous. They wanted to lock him in a zoo and charge admission for people to see the wolf they trapped, but not just any people, only people who wouldn’t care or recognize him, because the zoo was part of a larger theme park, where the only people having a good time were the ones who had full free ride passes or were there for music.

“The first man started okay on the bridge, but then it was revealed that the further he walked, the more the evidence of humanity infecting him could be seen. People could see him walking the bridge with Mithras and he became ashamed. So he created masks and started walking ahead and falling into holes Mithras helped him out of, because he could not see clearly.

“Each time he would make a new mask, Mithras would throw it away, and the man walking the bridge would become so angry he would just create more masks, and further, still tried to impress the human beings, who did nothing but cage him prior, by saying Mithras was his ‘pet’ he was trying to retrieve.

“By the time they reached the tower, the man had no desire to show his face, and Mithras no longer respected him, because the man he helped cared more for how he appeared to humans than the path he actually walked.”

“What was his name?”

“It does not matter. He no longer has one. He used so many fake names & masks that none of them meant anything anymore. Some people are like Ravens, and can be called different names by everyone and stay the same bird. Other people, it’s the opposite.”

“How many names do you have, Uncle Atticus?”

“More than I know. They are gifts from other people all naming the same bird. Anyway, what happens when you hide your face so long is that under the mask, there is eventually no face left. The face has been entirely lost to deception and there is nothing left to look anyone in the eye with. So, the nameless man lives in the tower creating masks that only get destroyed by the Prince he insulted. Below the tower are monsters, and the ice bridge has not yet formed.

“The second man, Johan, was sent by the humans to destroy the bridge, and halfway to the tower he attacked Mithras, and the bridge, with an icepick. The bridge cracks every year, and the wire that supports it is indestructible. If the bridge could have laughed, it would; it was unharmed.

“Mithras was not. The icepick had hit his heart and made it cold. Johan returned to the human beings proudly, who rewarded him with a golden throne, processions of luxury vehicles, bribes, wealth, and followers, then killed him.

“They hollowed out his empty corpse and made him an automaton that merely recites from scripts, and his spirit passed over the bridge to the tower, where he serves Mithras fully, but Mithras cannot see him. All he sees is the hollow corpse on the throne, and feels failure as a Guide.

“The third man was an old writer named Hawk who insisted that he had written the entire story. That he created the bridge, that he authored the people, the monsters, the tower, and even Mithras himself. In front of humans, he claimed all things came from God, but to himself, he was the Great Narrator. It is like those people who catch fish and take pictures as if the size of the fish was their creation, instead of being seen accurately as just someone standing next to something suffocating to impress people.”

“Like the fish game on the iPad?”

“What fish game, Val?”

“The fish game!” exclaimed the tiny goetia. “It started as ‘Gülen’s Guppies.’ Some Sufi guy sent an iPad with a fish game where you have to find all the pretty fish and teach them to swim to Türkiye.”

“I sent that iPad before you were born.”

“Why?”

“I already had a guide to Türkiye. I figured Gülen could watch over my Godkids better than I could after I got hurt by someone with no face left.”

Val continued. “Then, something happened and the same game changed to ‘Fischadler Fishes for Assets,’ where instead of guiding the little fish, you had to catch them, sort them, and put them into buckets to either throw back, eat, or nail them to a wall on a plaque. I stopped playing because I don’t like eating fish, having dead fish on walls is weird, and even when you could set the fish free there was no way to get back to the game of guiding the fish across the ocean to Türkiye anymore.”

“You will notice, little goetia, that impressing people is a bad thing. Only human beings are impressed by dead fish, owning things, or controlling people.”

“What are we?”

“Cats.”

“What happened to the third guy?”

“The third guy got sick and split in two. When he lived in the tower, everyone could hear nothing but his complaints, but when he was asleep, he would exist in the human world saying perfect words but not living by them. He then woke up sicker each day. The man with the masks cared for him, but on the days the masks broke or became broken, Hawk became louder. He was too old to cross Al Sirat in Summer when it was merely a wire. He had to wait for the mercy of the Bifrost to cover it and make it wider. [This is also when Heimdallr, the gate guardian, smelled the least offensive.]

“However, if he weakened too far he could not cross at all. Johan could not cross without his body, and the first guy seemingly had no face due to surgical intervention, so that the final mask would not slip. It was secured to prevent movement, so movement was prevented, since his life was ruled by self created symbolism.

“The man in the masks lost the ability to communicate in anything except spiraling metaphor, and those around him in the tower began to speak the same way.

“Johan spoke halfway in magic, as we would see it. What else do you call it when you speak incantations dressed like a wizard…”

“…Or the Great Milenko?”

“Whoop whoop. Or the Great Milenko.”

Atticus sincerely hoped Dr. Gladwyn had explained the origin of his own name: a gift from an intelligence analyst during wartime, to make sure other intelligence operators who still had power & credibility would help serve as his personal security detail in exchange for free philosophy lessons.

“Why would anyone want free philosophy lessons?”

“No one should have to pay for philosophy lessons, my little juggalette. Higher knowledge should not be kept behind a caste system of invented Decorum. So, anyway. Johan teaches magic. But if you call it magic, he and everyone around him get really upset. Even when he teaches magic as a propped up corpse on a script.”

“What do they call it?”

“Prayer.

“So, because Johan spoke magic, so did the rest of the tower. And as for old man Hawk, he ran hot and cold. Johan’s ghost became exhausted by performing climate control alone. Spirits can always make things feel colder, as they teach in Appalachia.”

“How did Prince Mithras speak?”

“With a stutter and a lisp. Thankfully, no one else spoke like him.

“One day, Mithras discovered a room of masks created for him, of how the faceless man wished him to be. He destroyed them… and before he could set his own tower on fire, a wolf in a top hat appeared at the door.

“His name was Stephen. He said, ‘You claim to be close to God in a radio tower designed by a faceless man. You fear the monsters below while living with them here. Look down. What do you see?’

“‘The lights of cities.’

“‘Those are the lights of Stars. Come down and see. True, it has monsters, but monsters hide from light. When I sing, sing with me. We are watched and recorded for content. Be content and remain good content, and nothing will harm you.’

“So Mithras climbed down the tower for the first time. The others followed.

“The faceless man became like a ghost. No one saw him, but he saw them fully.

“The land of stars loves famous spooks, so Johan became uncomfortably solid. In some parts of the city he was invisible, and in others he became the brightest object there.

“Hawk lasted one day and returned to the tower in regret that absolutely nothing of note occurred to him and no one knew who he was… he did get asked if he was lost, confused, or seeking the land of legislation, though.”

“What’s the land of legislation?”

“Where lawyers, victims, perps, judges, and jury go for part of the afterlife. It’s a dimension where everything revolves around a huge multi year court case, in a court city, eating food from a court cafeteria, while living in a hotel near court paid for by court.”

“Is that heaven or hell?” asked the goetic child.

“It’s just court,” replied Atticus, then continued. “So, Mithras and Johan started making friends in the city of stars with the wolf in a top hat as their friend, as the man who designed the tower haunted them, and Hawk was occasionally seen on a billboard talking about ‘loneliness,’ only because he paid for it himself with bitcoin from the radio tower between the Bifrost and Al Sirat.”

The kitten was asleep, and Atticus was weirdly grateful his old friend Damian named all his kittens “Val” to be easy to identify over the years.

“Can you be my kid’s godfather?” asked Damian once, long ago.

“Sure. What did you name them?”

“Val.”

There might be up to six kittens named Val under Atticus’ wing.

Astaghfirallah.