By the time Shar and Wolfie had finished their walk to the two-story step-temple that was the Sippar family home, she had reviewed the class, summarized her thoughts and come to the conclusion that . . .

Well, she didn’t have a conclusion, aside from the part where she was stuck with a new goddess which shouldn’t have made any difference except now, suddenly, she wanted to finish the–

Wolfie yanked on his leash and she let go of it so he could run inside ahead of her, more frantic than usual. He ran throughout the downstairs, checking out the living room, the kitchen, the dining room, her mother’s old bedroom, while Shar detoured around the massive couch that was in the wrong place and dropped her keys and bag beside the phone. Her answering machine had a glowing “2” on it, but given her life it couldn’t be anything exciting so . . .

She went out to her half-painted kitchen where Wolfie was slurping water from his dish and poured a glass full of Kami’s Kool-aid, picked up the glass and the bottle, and followed Wolfie back to the living room where he sat down to use his back leg to scratch his ear, pausing momentarily as he was distracted by his crotch. Then she pushed the message button, and heard a voice she didn’t recognize say, ““Hey, Professor Sippar, this is Dog Essen. I think you screwed up grading my Mesopotamian Goddesses test. I put Hera down here and you marked it wrong. We gotta fix this so I can play football. I’m gonna come see you in the office tomorrow so you can change this. Thanks.”

“Hera was Greek,” Shar said to the answering machine and drank some Kool-aid.

It beeped again. Ray’s voice began to speak and Wolfie began to growl. “Sharlotte?” Ray said. “Pick up, please.” He waited a few seconds and then said, “Okay, fine. I won’t be over tonight. I’m showing the new assistant prof in Middle Eastern languages around. If you’ll pick up the phone, I’ll explain.”

“Ah, yes, the new girl,” Shar said to the machine as Ray talked on. She took another swig. This was her life, trying to convince Dog Essen that all goddesses were not created equal and listening to Ray trying to break up with her without actually breaking up with her.

Wolfie’s growl at the machine rose to a bark: “Don’t like you.”

“What?” Shar said, startled.

Wolfie looked up and her and barked, “Dump him.”

Shar sat down hard in her desk chair and stared at her talking dog as Ray mumbled something about seeing other people. “Wolfie?”

“Rat fink loser,” Wolfie growled to the answering machine.

“You can talk?” Shar shook her head to clear it, and then looked at the glass in her hand, and relaxed in relief. “Oh. Wow. This stuff is powerful. I thought I heard you talking.”

“You did.”

Shar looked at her dog and then at her glass and then at her dog again.

“What?” Wolfie barked.

“Oh, the hell with it,” Shar said and drank again.

Ray had been yammering on, evidently waiting for her to pick up the phone, but now he gave up. “Fine, be passive aggressive.” His sigh telegraphed his immense patience with her.

“This isn’t passive aggressive,” Shar said as the machine recorded his hang up. “This is lack of interest. You gave me a taser, you jerk.”

“Har, har,” Wolfie barked.

Shar grinned at him. Making your dog laugh. Good times. She took another drink. Hell, she’d been talking to Wolfie since he’d been a puppy, it made sense she’d get drunk and think he was talking back. Kind of.

Maybe she’d been alone too much.

“I may need to make some changes in my life,” she told her dog. “Get some new people. Kami was right about Daisy and Abby.”

“Not going back,” Wolfie growled. “Bad there. Ummi. Bikki. Weird.”

“You should talk.” She topped up her glass and took it and the bottle with her as she walked into her dining room to the massive table where the notes for her book were spread out. Monotheism, she thought as she looked at her life’s work. That would have been a good thing for the Mesopotamians to try

She drank some more Kool-aid and thought, I could just write the ending. Finish it. Be free. Be new. “I could get a new job,” she told Wolfie. “I could . . .” Well, actually, she couldn’t. She’d been trained to be a history professor and she was damn good at it, but that was about it. The only other profession she knew really well was Mesopotamian goddess worship. “I’d make a hell of a priestess.”

“No, no, NO.”

Shar frowned at him. “I had no idea you were this emotional.”

“It’s bad there. Not going back. I’m not going back. You’re not going back.” His barking reached a crescendo. “NOT GOING BACK.”

Shar shook her head at Wolfie. “You’re overwrought. It’s because you’re a dachshund.” She drank again and walked up the worn stone steps into the smaller second floor temple room that had been her bedroom for forty-two years.

Wolfie followed, grumbling and moaning as she put the bottle and the glass on the nightstand next to her flashlight and the taser. Then she went into the bathroom and changed into her sensible gray flannel pajamas. When she came back into the bedroom, Wolfie was standing beside the bed.

“Up,” he barked.

She picked up his furry, squirmy little black and gray body and put him on the bed, and he nosed under the duvet.

Shar got into bed, trying not to knock his teeth out with her knee. “You’re a sweet baby, Wolfie.”

Wolfie crawled back out from under the duvet, his big shiny brown eyes staring at her over his long black nose, his soft little upper lip quivering over his massive overbite. “Love you. Don’t go back. Something’s wrong.”

She made a kissing sound at him and caressed his smooth little head to soothe him, and thought, Why can’t men be this wonderful? Well, not the overbite, but the steady, uncomplicated, loyal love and devotion?

Instead of like Ray, who had given her a taser.

“A taser,” Shar said to Wolfie. “I tell Ray that maybe it’s not a good idea for me to live alone and instead of moving in, he gives me a taser.”

“Jerk-face loser,” Wolfie grumbled.

The Dying God-King in the bas relief had not been a jerk-face loser. He’d looked steady. And strong. And kind of hot for somebody carved out of rock.

“Pretty sad when you start thinking bas reliefs are hot,” she told Wolfie, and he put his head on her leg and looked up at her, his eyes pleading. “I love you,” she said, scratching the top of his head.

“Love you, too. Don’t go back.” He burrowed back under the duvet.

She drank again. “Sometimes I get lonely, you know.”

“I know,” Wolfie whined, his voice muffled by the duvet. “Don’t go back.”

“I mean, you’re the greatest, but sometimes I need people.” Shar finished off her glass. “Friends. Like maybe Abby and Daisy.” And maybe a man, somebody steady, somebody her age, somebody not Ray, who had seemed so promising at first. And then they’d gotten into a rut, and now Ray was evidently rutting with somebody else.

Well, she could do that, too.

“So where are all the good guys who’ve been around for awhile?” she asked the lump in the bed that was Wolfie. “Guys who speak my language? Huh? Somebody new. Somebody who’s not showing the new assistant prof his artifacts as we speak. Which he got on eBay and not on a dig. At least I went on digs.”

“Stay home.” Wolfie poked his head out from under the duvet again. “Don’t go back. Creepy. Bad.”

His brown eyes were so anxious and his little face was so tense that Shar stroked his head and said, “Okay, I won’t go back.”

Wolfie relaxed and licked her hand. “Good girl. Sweet baby. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Shar put her empty glass on the bedside table, turned out the light, and snuggled down under the covers with her dog. “My exciting days up close and personal with the ancient world are over. But it was interesting . . .”

She slipped into sleep, images racing across her frontal lobe in fast forward, vibrant Abby and her sweet huge dog, vivid Daisy with Bailey leaping rhythmically by her side, scary Kami at the altar raising her hands, weird Bikki and Ummi dancing on the tiled floor, and fierce Wolfie, whining with portent, pacing back and forth on the bed like a little black and gray, short-legged lion—

“ ‘s okay,” she murmured to him in her dreams.

“No, no, it’s bad.”

She tossed her head and was back in her bedroom again, but now the half-forgotten patterns painted on her ceiling glowed, the big sun carved into the wall opposite the bed hummed, and the room began to shake.

Wolfie whined.

“Shhhh,” she told him, “it’s a dream,” and reached for the flashlight next to the bed, but it wasn’t there so she picked up the taser instead. Why don’t they make tasers with flashlights? she thought through the fog and rumble of the dream. Then you could see who you’re disabling. And maybe a bottle opener—

A white light whooshed up in front of her and she screamed because a man was standing at the foot of her bed.

“Run,” Wolfie screamed and shot out from under the covers, hitting the floor with a splat.

Shar gripped her taser and caught her breath, looking at the man, translucent in blue light but growing more solid as she watched, broad and bare-chested, his hooded eyes closed over his full beard, his arms outstretched.

Okay, he was blue and glowing and therefore not real. “It’s a dream,” she called after Wolfie as he howled, “Get out, get out!” from the hall.

The man opened his eyes and the glow began to fade. “I am the God of the Summer, the Sacrifice and the Light. I am—”

More fucking Mesopotamia.

She lunged forward and tasered him.

He collapsed, and she looked over the foot of the bed at his unconscious body, now mostly solid and covering a lot of her floor, still faintly glowing with that blue light.

“Sorry,” she said to him, “but I’m not going to dream about that damn book, too.”

He looked very real lying there, almost naked. He looked good, too, broad and well-muscled. Strong. Lots of stamina. She could have done without the beard, but the rest of him was pretty much perfect.

“I’ve been looking for an interesting man with a little age on him,” she said to his beautiful, unconscious face. “But four thousand years? No.” She looked around for her significant other. “Wolfie?”

Wolfie slunk back in. “I peed.”

“It’s okay, honey, it’s only a dream.”

“On the rug.” He pawed at the gray rag rug by her bed.

“It’s a dream rug.” She picked up the rug and went around the end of the bed, stepping over the god of summer to get to the door that led out onto the wide deck. She dropped the rug out there and then came back and looked at the god again.

He looked familiar, the hooded eyes, the strong nose, the thick curly black hair that crossed his forehead like little commas . . . Right, he’s the Dying God-King, she thought, relieved to recognize him. “I’m dreaming about the bas relief,” she told Wolfie, whose tail was lashing now as he stood back from the god, growling. “Great, I’m having erotic dreams about a stone wall hanging.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You’re right,” she said looking down at the unconscious god. “This hardly qualifies as erotic. Maybe I shouldn’t have tasered him. It might have gotten interesting.”

“He’s real.” Wolfie ran to the door and then back to her. “Let’s go. He’s real.”

“He’s a dream, Wolf,” she told him. “It’s the middle of the night. I don’t want to go.”

Wolfie went to sniff the Dying God-King and then whined again. “He’s real.”

“Okay, then.” Shar put the taser on the bedside table. “We’ll just get rid of him.” She opened the door to the deck and bent and took his wrists and tried to pull him around the bed. “God, you weigh a ton.” She tried again, shoving with her feet to get traction, dragging him slowly until he was stretched out on the deck.

“That better?” she asked Wolfie as she shut the door, out of breath from the effort. “You can’t see him now so he’s not in the dream any more. He’s gone.” She felt a little depressed about that, but she told Wolfie, “He probably wasn’t looking for a serious relationship anyway. You know those gods.”

“Let’s go,” Wolfie whined. “Get away. Get out.”

Shar yawned. “Nope. I’m getting some sleep. Come on, you can’t run away from everything.” She picked him up and put him on the bed and climbed in beside him, and then she settled into her pillows and fell into more dreams, dreams of new friends and old gods, one glowing blue god that bent over her, his eyes hot on her—

She jerked awake, breathing hard, feeling tense and frustrated as the sun beamed into the bedroom she’d slept in since birth. Except that now, everything looked brighter, the carved sun on the wall across from her looked deeper, the stone warmer, the ancient painted patterns on the ceiling sharper, the whole room seemed to hum faintly, and as she sat up, she felt for the first time the slide of her soft, worn Egyptian cotton sheets under her hands, really felt them, and thought, Lovely. Even Kami’s blue-glazed bottle was beautiful. It’s a good day to be alive, she thought and went into the bathroom and took her shower, staying longer than usual because the water felt so amazing on her body, and then got dressed in her teaching clothes: grey pants, a beige sweater, and her grey jacket.
God, these are depressing clothes, she thought, and went downstairs.

The Dying God-King was sitting at her dining room table in a red flannel shirt, eating a muffin and reading her research.

Shar screamed.

Wolfie looked up at her and barked, “I told you so!”

Shar heard her dog talking to her in the clear, undrunken light of day and screamed again, but he’d already crouched toward the table, his teeth bared.

“NO!” Shar said, as he snarled “Die, you bastard!” and launched himself at the god.