Harrodean put one hand on her head and the other clutching her chest. The pulse was so strong it compelled her to follow. The way it raged inside her head and her heart drove her slowly to a quiet insanity with the seduction of curiosity. They'd camped near the city. Moundie Bo and ProudPop slept soundly at the foot of the tree next to their steam-powered balloon which they'd hitched to a metal post in the ground. Phenny vanished. Harrodean didn't look for him. He needed time to think about what transpired between them. And she respected that.

She wanted to cross the water. But she didn't want to turn into sand again. The water looked like painted clouds. She dipped a toe into it and the clouds spread apart and a glint of sunlight shone.

She put her orange, yellow, blue and green hair in a bun. Her hair started growing per hour and she knew it meant she was healing. She put one foot on the surface and let it stay there for a while. It didn't sink or turn into sand. She smiled. She did the same thing with her other foot. It didn't sink but turned into sand. She groaned and pulled it out. She tried again putting both feet in the water at the same time. They both turned to sand but didn't sink. She took them both out. She kneeled down and tested the water with her fingertips. Nothing happened.

She sank both her hands in and there was no symptom. She stood up with her hands in front of her letting them rest on her knees. The water droplets trickled down her legs to her feet. No effect. She looked down. She raised a brow at the result. Harrodean looked out at the water. The painted cloud surface formed into wolf clouds and a thunderstorm brewed on its surface. She was on the edge of the bridge between calm and serenity as the pulse thrummed through her firing off with the momentum of a cannonball. She dove in the water to drown out the madness. Before she realized it her body righted itself and she was skipping, at moments striding and running on the surface of the water disappearing into its cloudiness.

The pulse didn't dampen only gained strength in its rhythm as she reached the upside-down gargoyle and unicorn-shaped gates of the City of Hargot, where finally it subsided to a whisper. The pulse's whisper was a tick-tock feeling in her stomach at the bewitching northside hour; the hour of ascension and decimation. Her skin was wet. But she didn't turn into sand. When she took a breath in sigh of relief, the color of the carbon dioxide released into the air from her tetralungs was blue. Whatever it was she knew she was getting close to it.

She scaled up the gate, but it moved and roared, trying to eat her alive. Its teeth bit into her torso and another of the gargoyles gnawed on her foot. She didn't bleed from her torso. But the pain was the equivalent of a heart attack. Her foot bled from the gargoyle attack. But she didn't feel the pain. "This probationary stage with my powers sucks, but at least it's an improvement from feeling like a sandy beach," Harrodean said yanking her foot out of the gargoyle's mouth. She wiggled her body out of the other gargoyle's jaws. She fell. She quickly grabbed onto the sharp tooth of the gargoyle that gnawed on her foot earlier and hung on her feet grazing the ground below. She climbed back up using its sharp tooth for support. It growled and grimaced. She laughed a little as it wailed in pain, its tooth pulling from the root and crumbling bit by bit from the pressure. She was able to get to the gargoyle's mandible and to one of its ears. She crawled along its ear lobe. She stayed there for a moment.

Her body dangled at the entrance of its ear canal. It heard the tick-tock sound from her stomach and it defragmented infecting the other gargoyles and unicorns. She scrambled to the crown of the gargoyle as they rearranged themselves almost overlapping. Harrodean ducked and dodged through the process. She pounced onto the neck of the unicorn, grabbing a fistful of its mane. For a moment it galloped in place and she hung on.

She flipped backward on the unicorn's back. The gargoyles and unicorns consolidated after each rearrangement cycle completed. She flipped and bounced trying to steady herself from getting caught in the merging and the reorganization at the same time. She grabbed hold of one of the unicorns' horns and swung herself around and around flinging her body over the gate. Harrodean belly flopped first into the perennial ice cream den garden. She shuddered from the frozen coldness. She waded through it trying to gain her composure. The ice cream teemed into an avalanche, and she was buried underneath. Harrodean was knocked unconscious. The Summer Wives guarding the den garden came to her rescue, digging her out with their scoop-shaped shovels. When they finally got her out, the ice cream had eaten through her skin. The ice cream was extremely corrosive. It was very dangerous when consumed or when it met with the skin.

They flanked her and eased her out of the sweet frozen confectionery. As they carried her to the warm bungalow, her skin sloughed off and hit the floor in the form of ice chips as her frostbitten body gathered temperature. Her burnt skin healed, leaving scar tissue. Her eyes had opened, but looked like two foggy glass jars.

"She's asleep," one of the summer wives said noticing.

"No, I'm in Zeppelin Horizontal Phase. Thanks for pulling me out of there," Harrodean said startling the Summer Wives causing them to gasp and jump backward. "My body is almost fully regenerated. Her skin crackled as her dermis and epidermis printed itself on her physique with the precision of a copy machine.

"You are lucky we were here taking care of the garden," a second summer wife said.

"Yes thank you," she sat up and stood up on her feet wobbly.

The Summer Wives reached out to steady her. She put up her hands to urge them away. "My skin is still sensitive. I'll be ok. I need a shortcut out of here."

"We can take you to the gate."

"The gate? No I have to get to the nebula of the city."

"You're not allowed here in the city. No one is while the acoustic process is going on," the third summer wife said.

"I'll stay here."

"We could always use another summer wife to help us here in the ice cream den garden during this Eve Solstice."

"If I were a Summer Wife, will I be able to enter the nebula of the city?"

"Yes, after the Eve Solstice is over. But you have to serve forty and fortnight of forty light years before you're granted access."

"And who grants this access after time served?"

"The Senior Summer Wives."

"Who are they?"

One of the summer wives beckoned Harrodean to a window on the opposite side of the ice cream den garden. She pointed.

"Fab," Harrodean smiled looking through the window at the tombstones outside on the rocky hill.