Skylar's Sumer Vacation
(The real story behind the "The Exaltation of Inanna")
This story requires a little bit of an explanation – which is never a good sign. And in fact, the explanation may need a bit of an explanation, too. But here it goes.
When my twin grandchildren moved from Seattle to Charleston, some eight years ago, I was totally bereft. Before they moved I used to tell them bedtime stories, invent silly songs, and play all kinds of games. (They never really liked poetry, which made me sad.) After they moved, I transformed their bedtime stories into written stories that (at first) their father read to them, and later they read by themselves. I must have written about two dozen short stories, and one novella. Most of these wouldn’t interest anyone on Substack: they’re filled with inside jokes and fan fiction about the characters they were currently in love with. There was the Bendy and Ink Machine phase, the Wings of Fire phase, all too many Harry Potter stories – it’s amazing what excesses love will drive you to. Many of the stories had to do with a make-believe family who lived in South Carolina, who were sort of a mythical transmogrification of my grandkids and their family. And basically, although I’m not displeased with some of the tales, they aren’t really publishable or resonant with anyone else.
Later, however, I discovered that another branch of that mythical family lived in Seattle. I wrote my novel, October Girl, about Skylar Warded, the cousin of the Charleston branch. Skylar’s mother, Faye, is, as it turns out, a prophetess and a student of the Moirae. Her father is a dream. And her grandparents are, well – indescribable; they have deep connections with important Personages, but we never quite know what’s going on with them. October Girl takes place when Skylar is eleven years old. In Skylar’s Sumer Vacation, she’s in high-school. (A couple more stories happen when she’s in college in Stony Brook.)
One more note: a year ago my granddaughter became really interested in Sumerian mythology. For her thirteenth birthday, I bought her a necklace with a dingir on it – the cuneiform symbol for “goddess”, and wrote her this story. It’s sort of the backstory behind The Exaltation of Inanna. I’ve always found Enheduanna, the narrator of the Exaltation, to be a whiney, spoiled, vicious little high priestess. This story is about what happens when she and Skylar meet.
Skylar’s Sumer Vacation
Skylar was sitting curled up on an overstuffed armchair in her grandparents’ parlor. Her iPad was on the little side table next to her running a Latin dictionary app, and a copy of Virgil’s Aeneid sat on her lap. It was a hot Thursday afternoon toward the end of August and she was sweating uncomfortably.
Her grandmother, Metis, came by with a tall glass of iced tea.
“Here, dear.” She put the glass on the side table next to the iPad. Skylar looked at it nervously and moved it further away from the tablet. “Maybe it’s time for a break?”
“I can’t, Grandma. I have a test tomorrow.”
“I don’t see how you let yourself be persuaded to go to summer school. And to study Latin, of all the ridiculous things!”
“I had to! I need more credits to graduate high school early. And I don’t want to work too hard in my senior year.”
“Yes, but Latin?”
“Don’t give her a hard time, Metis. Latin is good for her.” Skylar’s grandfather walked over to her, a tall man with long silver hair tied back in a ponytail, and tiny pink-lensed glasses that kept slipping down his long nose. He handed her a moist hand towel. Skylar wiped her face gratefully.
“You said Latin was easy,” she accused.
“I said once you get used to it, it begins to make sense. You understand the syntax and idioms. It’s like First and Second Least Songs that you learned. They don’t make sense right away, but eventually you understand how they explain the structure of, well… of everything.”
“Fine,” Skylar grumped. “I can get Arma virumque cano…, I sing of arms and the man – but who really cares? It seems like a lot of patriarchal, patriotic bullshit. The same as like everything in every fucking culture in history.”
Metis folded her arms across her chest and smiled smugly. But Abraxas sighed.
“Alright, kardia mou,” Abraxas sighed. “Let me see if I can help you out.” He went over to a writing desk and pulled something out of one of the tiny drawers. It appeared to be a necklace with a charm or something. “You’ve heard of King Solomon?” he asked.
Skylar nodded as he fixed it it around her neck.
“Have you heard about his ring?”
“Dunno, Grandpa. What ring?”
Abraxas sighed again. “Solomon was given a charm. Some say a djinn gave it to him, some say it was a gift from God. All lies! More of that patriarchal revisionist history that you and Metis complain about. But it was actually given to him by Bilquis, the Queen of Sabaeans – or Sheba, as we like to mispronounce it. And it wasn’t a ring. It was this amulet.”
Skylar picked it up and glanced at it curiously: it was a dark red oval stone with a 𒀭 etched onto it.
“So what’s it supposed to do?”
“Well,” he said, scratching his ear. “I was supposed to give Solomon the ability to understand the languages of all animals.”
“And did it?”
“Well. Yes.” He removed his glasses and swiped his face with a bandana, then replaced the glasses; they immediately slid down his nose again. “But it also gave him the ability to understand all human languages as well. You see, Bilquis really wanted to broker a peace treaty between their two countries, but she spoke Sabaic while Solomon spoke Hebrew – which made negotiations difficult.”
“I thought the Queen of Sheba was in love with Solomon?”
Metis harrumphed. “Ha! More patriarchal nonsense! Bilquis was a shrewd leader. If she slept with Solomon at all (which I doubt) it was only to keep him from attacking her country.”
Skylar frowned. “So where did Bilquis get this?” She flicked the amulet.
“Long, long story, Sky,” Abraxas said. “But it was actually made in Ur, at least fifteen hundred years before Bilquis got her hands on it.”
“And how did you get your hands on it?”
“Even longer story. But listen. It gives the wearer the ability to understand all tongues. It should help you with your Latin. Just give it back before your test, okay? I suspect Miss Crahen would consider it cheating.”
Skylar sighed. “Okay. I think I’ll take my stuff down to the second basement and study there. It’s a lot cooler.”
Skylar walked through the kitchen pantry and down the rickety steps to the menagerie. She scratched Bast under her chin, and went down one more flight to the second basement. The sub-basement was crowded with all sorts of knick-knacks; it was dusty and dim, but much cooler than the rest of the house. She settled down on a purple velvet couch in front of a low table covered in intricate mosaic figures. It was her favorite spot down here, possibly because the table had a little statuette of Isis that glowed with a friendly light. She picked up her copy of the Aeneid. Her grandfather was right. It was totally comprehensible now. The poetry was kind of nice, but the story was boring and self-congratulatory and totally male-oriented. All the women seemed to fall in love with Aeneas, and he abandoned them all pretty callously. The only cool woman was the Cumaean Sibyl – and for some stupid reason she was locked in a cage. Virgil was a major bore. She scribbled some desultory notes about syntax and vocabulary on her copy (which actually belonged to the school) and pretty soon fell asleep on the couch…
…and was suddenly wakened by someone yammering at her.
“O Great Goddess! You have my eternal devotion for coming to my aid! I abase myself before you!” The woman kneeling in front of her bashed her head on the dusty earth. “Your mercy is like the milk of aurochs! Your kindness is like the sun! Your vengeance is lightning! Your wrath splits the mountainsides!”
The woman could not have been much older than Skylar herself. She was dressed in a long woolen robe of brilliant crimson, and wore a gorgeous golden headdress.
“Huh?” said Skylar sleepily.
“O Lady of Heaven! Strike down my oppressor! Rend his limbs! Hang him by his own entrails! Drive stakes through his eyes! Crush his manhood and stuff it down his traitorous gullet!”
“Ew!” Skylar shivered. “That’s kind of gross!”
The woman smirked. “I am certain your divinity will exact a fitting punishment upon the accursed head of Lugalane!” And with that she spat a huge dollop of saliva onto the ground.
“Yuck! Don’t do that! It’s disgusting!”
“I will not let his name pollute my mouth!”
“Okay. Fine. Don’t pollute your mouth, or whatever. But don’t spit like that. Okay? It grosses me out!”
The woman frowned. “When shall we proceed to Ur, O mighty one?”
“Um. Look. I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot.”
“Wrong foot?”
“I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.”
The woman frowned. “You are testing me, O goddess! But I see you. Your garb is unlike any mortal’s.”
Skylar glanced down at herself. “It’s just a t-shirt and jeans. Everyone wears this stuff.”
“And you bear the dingir, verily announcing yourself as Inanna herself!”
“The what?”
The woman pointed to the amulet around Skylar’s neck. Skylar lifted it and stared at it. “Dingir?”
The woman averted her eyes. “The glyph that signifies goddess. No mortal would dare bear that sign!”
Skylar sighed. “Look. I’m not a goddess! I’m just me. Sky.”
The woman smiled in satisfaction, almost gloating. “Just as I begged! I called to you, Inanna, and you deigned to come, unlike my supplications to your father.”
She gritted her teeth. “My name is Sky! Not Inanna, or whatever.”
But Skylar noticed something strange when she said her name. Somehow, when she said Sky, it came out in three syllables. Frowning, she spoke into her cupped hands, trying to hear her own words. “Sky. Sky. Sky,” she whispered. “Inanna. Inanna. Inanna,” the echo whispered back.
“Oh. Shit,” she mumbled to herself. “I guess I’m speaking Sumerian. My name must translate to Inanna – the Lady of Heaven, the Sky Goddess. Sky. Oh shit!”
She turned back to the woman, who had prostrated herself on the ground. “Okay,” she said. “Maybe we should start over. My name is Skylar. Who are you?”
Still prostrating herself, the woman said, “Who would not know you, Inanna-la! I am called Enheduana, high priestess of your father Nanna, patron of our magnificent city of Ur, and your most humble servant.”
“Um. Okay.” Skylar really didn’t know what to do about the woman rubbing her face in the dirt in front of her feet. “So what did this guy do to you?”
Enheduanna got to her knees and bowed. “The accursed Lugalane…” She spat on the ground again, really close to Skylar’s sneakers.
“Ew!” Skylar flinched. “Cut it out! I mean it!”
Enheduanna continued in a mounting tirade. “The accursed one drove me from my city, from my temple, the mighty ziggurat of Ur! He marched with a renegade army and captured my priestesses, he killed my temple guards, he drove me from Ur! Drove me from my own city so that I must needs find refuge here in Girsu!” The priestess barely paused for breath as she hurled through her recitation. “Is there anyone more vile, more accursed, in all the lands between the two rivers? There is not!”
Skylar pursed her lips. “Um. Okay. So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to rend him into three thousand six hundred bloody gobbets! And feed the gobbets to the carrion crows! I want you to incinerate him and his army and spread their ashes on the Euphrates so that their souls may never find rest! I want you to loose rampaging aurochs upon him that his blood may nourish the grain! I want you to drive stakes from his stinking anus up through his throat! I want…”
“Yuck. I don’t suppose I could just kind of talk to him? Ask him to give you your job back?”
“Yes! Yes!” cried Enheduanna. “Speak to him in your voice of thunder! Deafen him! Blast his profane usurper’s head from his shoulders!”
“Not quite what I meant.”
“Shall you fly us to Ur on the winds of storm that we may descend like the lightning of Ishkur upon the sixty-times accursed Lugalane?” She spat again.
Skylar gagged. “Cut it out, Enheduanna! I mean it! I’m not going anywhere with you if you’re gonna be so gross!”
The priestess frowned. “I have prepared a chariot for us. Behold!” She pointed to something behind Skylar’s back.
“Yikes! What the fuck is that?”
Enheduanna frowned again. “It is our chariot, your Divinity.”
And indeed it was a chariot, covered in gold filigree and replete with plush crimson benches.
“I mean, what are those things, those giant cows or whatever?”
“They are aurochs, your Divinity. Surely you recognize them? They are made in the image of the Bull of Heaven. I know you are used to greater and mightier beasts, but these are the strongest and grandest aurochs in all Girsu. I am ashamed that you find them unsuitable.”
Skylar shivered. “No. They’re plenty suitable. They’re huge.”
“Then let us ascend the chariot and race like Enlil’s winds. It is sixty miles and six to Ur.”
The chariot was actually pretty comfortable. A small man in drab clothing urged the giant aurochs forward at a surprising pace while Skylar and Enheduanna sat on the comfortable bench behind him. The sun was very hot, though, and Skylar wiped her face constantly. Enheduanna offered her a clay cup of a fizzy brown liquid that looked like cola. Skylar took a sip and grimaced.
“Ew! What’s this?”
“It is our finest beer, O Holy One!”
“Do you have any water, maybe?”
“Only for the aurochs,” said the priestess. “I am abashed that I have nothing finer to give you. Will you accept an onion? It is often used to sate thirst.”
“Uh. No thanks. I think I’ll pass.
The day was almost over before the chariot approached Ur. Luckily they had passed a little spur of the Tigris some hours earlier, and Skylar was able to drink about a quart of the clear, pristine water. The tip of the ziggurat blazed a bright gold in the lowering sun. Enheduanna opened her arms as if to embrace it. “My temple!” she cried.
There were many roads leading up to the gates of Ur, all paved in perfectly identical clay bricks and sealed with some kind of black goo. There were only a few gates in its tall wall, though, so the traffic converged in a chaotic tangle of chariots, carts, wagons, horsemen, palanquins and pedestrians dressed in all manners of brightly dyed, loose clothing. Off in the distance, the Euphrates gleamed like a golden snake dotted with many vessels, all with brightly colored sails.
Skylar was really impressed.
The traffic made way for Enheduanna’s chariot. It had to: the charioteer plowed through the crowd, recklessly ignoring carts and pedestrians. Watchmen stationed on top of the city gate shaded their eyes, straining to see what was causing the commotion. They must have recognized the chariot or its passengers, though, because a loud trumpet sounded from the high walls, and a double line of spearmen marched forth to meet them. At the head of the line was a small man with a cruel face, draped in rich clothes and covered in gold bracelets, arm-bands, and a jeweled torque. Two veiled women on either side of him fanned him with peacock feathers.
“So, Enheduanna! You dare to return!” His voice was squeaky, but vicious.
“Lugulane!” Enheduanna spat. Skylar gritted her teeth.
“I warned you what would happen should you dare return to Ur! I sentence you to death by evisceration!”
“Ha!” cried the priestess. “Now, Inanna! Blast him! Now we retake Ur!”
“Um…” Skylar made a wry, half-smile.
“Blast him!”
“Kind of misplaced my blaster…?”
Lugulane made a curt gesture. One of his soldiers shot an arrow through the chest of Enheduanna’s charioteer. The priestess glared at Skylar, “Now, Inanna!”
“You dare to call this child by the name of a great goddess?” Lugulane hissed. “You both shall suffer sixty times over for this!”
The cell they forced Skylar and Enheduanna into was no more than ten paces in both directions. The priestess never stopped cursing and threatening as the pikemen thrust them in. Skylar looked around glumly. There was a hole in the middle of the floor for relieving oneself; Skylar gagged when looked inside, and the smell in the hot sun was beyond description.
Enheduanna glared at Skylar. “Why did you not blast them when they dared to touch you?”
“Sorry. All out of blasts.”
“I begin to misdoubt you are who you claim to be.”
“I never claimed anything. I keep telling you! I’m not your fucking goddess!”
“Then perhaps you’re a demon come to hasten my demise!”
“Gimme a break! I’m not a demon either!”
“Then mayhaps you’re an agent of the accursed Lugulane!” She spat into the stinking hole.
“Would you please stop that? It’s disgusting.”
Enheduanna folded her arms across her chest. “If you will not do as I ask, I see no reason to do as you ask.”
“Oh, now that’s really mature!” Skylar edged into a corner of the stone cell, as far from Enheduanna as possible, while the priestess glared from her own corner. Skylar turned to face the wall. Then, feeling angry, frightened, disgusted, and lonely she pulled out her smartphone and played one of her favorite songs:
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall…
Enheduanna gasped. “What magic is this? What is that talisman? What language?”
Skylar pursed her lips, still staring into the corner of their prison. “It’s just my iPhone. It’s English. I guess you don’t have my necklace so you don’t understand it.”
“Een-ga-lu-šu,” the priestess said in a reverent tone. “A celestial language!”
Skylar groaned.
“Guards!” Enheduanna cried. “The goddess is wroth! Release us at once!”
A pikeman stared into the tiny barred window of the cell. “Be silent, you!” But then he heard the music and turned pale.
“What enchantment is this?” he gasped.
“Inanna is summoning the hosts of Nergal! They shall descend upon Ur and bring flood and famine and pestilence and locusts and… and…”
Skylar groaned again. “Give it a rest, Enheduanna. I think he got the point.”
The guard quickly unbarred the cell, threw himself to the ground and bowed, averting his eyes. Enheduanna grabbed Skylar’s hand and pulled her out of the door, not without first kicking the prostrate guard.
“Was that like totally necessary?” Skylar was getting pretty annoyed with her companion.
Enheduanna smirked, but didn’t answer. She led Skylar up a flight of stone steps onto a broad plaza surrounding the great ziggurat.
Unfortunately Lugulane was waiting for them with a platoon of two dozen pikemen.
“Your end is nigh!” cried Enheduanna. “Show him the talisman of power, O great goddess!”
Skylar reached for her phone, but Lugulane snatched it from her hand.
“This?” he laughed. “This is mere magic. It is an artifact any wizard could produce. It is no more divine than a pig! No more divine than you or your outlandish companion. You have succeeded in annoying me. I was going to wait until sunset to kill you. But it pleases me to execute you now.”
He gestured to his men. Two soldiers pressed their pikes – long pointed spears – into Skylar and Enheduanna backs and forced them to the base of the tall ziggurat. Meanwhile, hundreds of citizens of Ur gathered around them with expressions of fear, curiosity and blood lust.
The ziggurat was hundreds of feet tall with stairways built into the sides, covered in bright mosaics and depictions of Nanna painted on its huge stones. Generally the god was killing something.
Skylar and the priestess were marched up the steep steps onto the broad, flat top of the structure. In the middle of this platform was a square hole that pierced into the depths for several dozen feet. The bottom was covered in sharp stakes.
“Do you wish to pray or supplicate your gods?” Lugulane’s tone was unbearably smug.
Skylar’s mouth went dry. She had been threatened and insulted before, but it didn’t look like she was going to get out of her plight this time. She began to tremble.
“Are you at a loss for words, false priestess?” Lugulane mocked. “Where is your vaunted eloquence now? Where are the songs that charmed the gods, eh? Will you sing to them from the bottom of this pit, when your lungs are pierced through? Will you charm the vultures?”
The crowd that had followed them up the ziggurat were jeering, screaming cries of Shame! False priestess! Blasphemer! Liar!
Skylar looked into the hole, noticing for the first time, the brown stains on the spikes, and the skeletons tossed among them like discarded toys.
“Um… listen guys. I don’t think you really want to do this…”. Her voice quavered.
The guards behind Skylar and Enheduanna poked their spears into the girls’ backs, urging them forward toward the pit. Skylar bit her lip. She started shivering even though the Mesopotamian sun was blazing down on them.
“Honestly, guys!” She took a deep breath. “This is a very bad idea!”
But Enheduanna stood up straight. She stared her captor in the eye and cried, “I defy you, Lugulane!” She spat into the deep hole. (Skylar winced, despite her terror.) “And I have not lost my voice!” She glared at the gathering crowd, opened her arms to the heavens and in a powerful voice, sang out:
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall…
The jeering crowd suddenly grew silent, looking at each other nervously.
“What nonsense are you mumbling!” growled Lugulane. But he, too, looked left and right as if expecting an attack.
“It is the language of the gods!” Enheduanna cried. “It is a hymn to Al-lis, bringer of justice and vengeance!”
“There is no goddess Al-lis!” said Lugulane – but he didn’t seem too sure of himself. The crowd backed away from Enheduanna.
“She is the Avatar of Al-lis!” she bellowed, and pointed a braceleted hand at Skylar. “Speak, Al-lis! Tell these reprobates the fate they will suffer if they allow this usurper to remain alive!”
“Um…” Skylar mumbled.
“She says UM. It signifies Death!”
Skylar shook herself. “No! No it doesn’t!” Enheduanna glared at her, but she glared back and continued. “Your understanding of the Celestial Tongue is incomplete, O priestess. It means go away forever. It means you are banished. It means get the fuck out of here or you’ll be in big trouble.”
The crowd backed away. The soldiers dropped their pikes.
Enheduanna frowned. “Very well. Let him be banished. Let him be chained aboard a ship to Kemet, to Egypt. Let the Pharaoh of the Nile deal with this filth, with this Lugulane!” She spat into the pit.
“Oh for god’s sake!” Skylar moaned.
There were some things in Ur that Skylar could eat. The goat wasn’t too bad, or the flat bread made with barley. The beer that they seemed to love was just disgusting. She was sitting in an opulent room in the temple next to Enheduanna. Slaves were fanning her with puffs of feathers on long sticks. Everything was covered in gold and lapis lazuli and carnelian. Mosaics of Nanna, Inanna, An and Enki decorated the walls. Enheduanna looked around her in satisfaction.
“I have a gift for you, Inanna,” she said, “for you have restored me to my rightful place!”
“I told you my name isn’t Inanna!”
The priestess smiled. “The ways of the gods are beyond mortal comprehension. If you do not want your holy nature known, I can only obey your will.”
“Yeah. Right. Like you’ve been obeying my will all this time.”
Enheduanna reached into a beautifully decorated casket and pulled out Skylar’s cell phone.
“I return to you your talisman!”
Skylar took it gratefully. “Thanks! These are kind of expensive!” She looked at Enheduanna who seemed to be waiting expectantly for something.
“Um. Here.” She unclasped the necklace her grandfather had given her. “In a couple of thousand years I guess one of your descendants will probably give this to the Queen of Sabateans. I think.” She fastened it around Enheduanna’s neck.
“Nin me sar ra!” the priestess said.
“Yeah. You’re welcome.”
Enheduanna bowed her head.
Some beautifully dressed slaves led Skylar to a sleeping chamber. They had spent the day in celebrations and rituals. Enheduanna addressed her people in a powerful, confident voice. Skylar didn’t understand a word, but every so often the priestess would require some response from her. She generally said something like “Thank you very much. It’s great being here.” – which Enheduanna appeared to understand, and translated for the worshippers. She hoped the translation was accurate, but Enheduanna somehow turned “Thank you!” into a half-hour speech. It was an exhausting day.
The bed was covered in gorgeous purple velvet; it was very soft and comfortable. There was a little table nearby covered in intricate mosaic designs, with a statuette of Isis on top. She fell asleep very quickly…
…and wakened when her Latin text fell from her lap onto the floor.
Abraxas had his hand on her shoulder, and was offering her a spiced goat meat sandwich and a can of Pepsi.
“Sleep well, kardia mou?” he asked.
Skylar nodded and took the sandwich from his hands. “Thanks! I was really starving!”
“Where’s the amulet I gave you?”
Skylar looked at him sheepishly.
Abraxas shrugged. “No matter,” he said. But he looked wistful.
The next day she aced her Latin exam.