Sister sighed as she hung lazily from the highest point of the Spider Web. She enjoyed the dizzying feeling she got when she let herself hang upside down, her wild auburn hair sweeping comically in midair, as she bounced and swayed gracefully on the rubber strap that suspended her high above the noisy rookery. This particular feature of the rookery's training course was so named because it was composed of gradually ascending layers of rubber straps that stretched across an opening. Each layer formed a hectic, random-looking web, giving the hatchlings a challenging, unpredictable structure to climb and swing on. The straps grew both looser and sparser with each level, so most of the smaller rooklings were not able to negotiate the highest level without constantly falling back to the more secure levels below. This allowed Sister to create her own eyrie, where she could keep a watchful eye on her younger siblings while still having the privacy to relax, think to herself, or write in her journal without someone incessantly interrupting or peeking over her shoulder.
But the rookery was unusually quiet tonight. Sister and Orion had been privileged to accompany the clan on their early patrol, and after returning, Brooklyn had taken the pages to the courtyard to work on their training as well. All except Lyra, who remained in the rookery, training with Orion instead. Lyra, though lithe and graceful, was almost too big and strong to be a fair match for her rookery siblings, and Brooklyn often asked Orion or Sister to train with her instead. Orion, having finished his schoolwork during daylight hours, had plenty of time now to spar with his younger sister on the balance beam.
Sister was supposed to be studying her lessons, but with none of the grownups present to hound her, she couldn't help but turn her curiosity to the match going on beneath her. Orion took a defensive posture, allowing Lyra many attempts to knock him off the beam, and blocking them all expertly. Sister's eyes widened as her little sister lunged at Orion again and again, trying to catch him in a hold. She tried several good combinations, but Orion was stronger and experienced enough to always guess her next move. Sister felt herself getting vicariously frustrated as Orion repeatedly dodged and tossed the younger hatchling to the mat, but Lyra kept her cool, even as Orion laughed and offered condescending, brotherly advice. She didn't let Orion rile her up, but each time she remounted the beam she looked back at him with a calm, calculating gaze, as if he were not an opponent, but a puzzle to be figured out.
Lyra never seemed to get frustrated or lose her composure when training. Sister wondered if this was a result of having three of the most insufferable rooklings ever hatched for rookery brothers. One could easily come to the conclusion that their antics had simply drained her energy to the point of apathy, but Sister doubted this theory. Though Lyra was known for restraint at expressing her feelings, her older siblings knew she was both passionate and ambitious, and while she wasn't easily distracted by the vain taunts of troublesome brothers, she felt true injustices deeply.
How different she was from Sister! Whose temper was short and often lacked patience or empathy when enduring any transgression from a clan member, no matter how minor. This often put her at odds with the adult members of the clan. While the uncles were inclined to laugh and joke at the child's half-pint fits of rage and sharp-witted back-talking, the aunties had become far less forgiving as Sister grew older and took on the responsibilities of a warrior. Angela in particular, had no patience for her brusque manners. Sister didn't know if it was because Angela was her biological mother or if it was simply her naturally gentle, but firm, manner. But Angela's scolding of any disrespect or lack of empathy on Sister's part always left her burning with shame. But far worse, was when the reprimand came from Goliath, the clan leader, or Brooklyn, his second-in-command.
Sister recalled, with some embarrassment, a night when she was not much older than Bonnie. Brooklyn had passed by a noisy dispute between Sister and Lexington over a promise he had not yet kept. Brooklyn had not appreciated the little wench's disrespectful tone and told her so emphatically. His words had silenced her and with boiling resentment, she had apologized to her uncle. As she had left to perform a reconciliatory chore in the courtyard, she had overheard the two uncles mentioning the name her mother had given her just a few months before.
"Angela wants to call her 'Ruth'," Brooklyn had joked under his breath, "'Ruthless' is more like it!" Lexington had chortled his agreement and Sister had departed in disgrace. Before long, she'd found Broadway, who recognized the sadness in her and quickly scooped her up and away to the library to read. While Angela seemed to possess the magic touch to effectively prick Sister's conscience, Broadway always had the talent for putting her right again. But if Sister was, by her nature, too quick to anger, she was, at least equally quick to forgive and rarely held a grudge for long. Even though all had been forgiven by the next time Sister saw her uncles, she would never willingly answer to the name 'Ruth' again.
Orion and Lyra had completed their training exercises and Lyra had settled at a desk in the library with a large book of thick parchment pages. Sister craned her neck curiously, wondering why Lyra would be reading such an odd, ancient-looking book and where she might have gotten it. Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar chirping voice. With a slight smile, Sister slid down the elastic strap to the next layer of spider web, and peeked below at a green, glowing structure that the hatchlings had created from a Christmas-themed bedsheet. The chirping sound had given way to bright giggles and Sister peeked inside the opening to find Bonnie sitting among a small council circle of Adelpha's dolls.
Year's before, when Sister had been a page and Lyra and her rookery were still hatchlings, Adelpha had become quite perturbed at the influx of plastic, humanoid infants that kept appearing in the rookery's toy boxes. The human dolls rubbed her wrong in a way she couldn't quit express.
"Must they have those?" she had asked Xanatos in consternation one evening, when Fox generously bestowed each of the hatchlings with a souvenir from their trip to India. Each of the female hatchlings had received an elegant fashion doll, with elaborate beads, golden bangles, and a brightly colored kurta.
Xanatos had laughed at her complaint.
"I understand. You don't want to reinforce gender stereotypes. I told Fox we should have just bought them all candy and sweets."
Adelpha had scowled irritably at his joke.
"Why should our children play with fake human babies?" she demanded, "What good can come of that?"
"I was led to believe that dolls were a fairly universal toy," Xanatos had explained with a shrug.
"Whatever for?"
"To practice taking care of children," he explained in exasperation, "Are you telling me that you never had any dolls?"
"If I had ever expressed the desire to care for a hatchling," Adelpha had explained with a bitter laugh, "They would have handed me a hatchling!"
"Very well then," Xanatos offered with a laugh, "I'll take them back to the airport in Delhi, if you like," But this was easier said than done, as Lyra had already grown attached to the pretty plastic child with beautiful deep, brown eyes and did not wish to give it up. Adelpha had looked at this situation with disdain and after some deliberation, decided on a practical way to correct it.
Her first step had been to requisition a sewing kit. Although suspicious at first, Goliath reasonably agreed to the request, after seeing the harmless size and flimsy quality of the tools and realizing that she could do no real harm to anyone with them. She then sought to construct a gargoyle doll out of some of Alexander's outgrown suits. This was not an easy task, as Adelpha had never once in her life endeavored to put a stitch in anything and really had no idea where to start with the process. Although she had managed to find a complicated instructional manual in basic hand stitchery and interpreting sewing patterns, no such patterns of gargoyle dolls actually existed, which further complicated the problem. She was not deterred, however, and after cannibalizing multiple stuffed animals in order to learn how the different pieces formed the desired three-dimensional shape, she began a series of attempts. She had accumulated an entire cardboard box of discarded prototypes which she regarded as too small, too flimsy, too flat, too misshapen, too cutesy, too frightening, and not frightening enough, before she declared success with a reasonably proportional winged, fanged, tailed baby doll. She adorned this creation with a loincloth that she fashioned from the plush hide of a slaughtered teddy bear and offered it to Lyra.
To Adelpha's relief, the delighted child embraced the gargoyle doll immediately, and soon forgot the plastic humans. The clan was very impressed with her efforts and Angela wisely suggested that Adelpha save the pattern she had created so it could be reused to make dolls for the other hatchlings.
Fox, however, had other ideas. She had found Lyra's made-from-necessity gargoyle doll to be both adorable and highly marketable, and she immediately began pushing the idea of patenting the design and selling mass-produced collectable gargoyle dolls to human children all over the world. Her marketing strategy was somewhat of a goodwill campaign and was quite appealing to most of the clan. She believed that they could reinforce the concept of gargoyles being protectors of the city, by reaching out to the youngest generation of humans and filling their urban-anxiety-ridden little arms with their very own secure, comforting gargoyle guardian.
Adelpha had been skeptical, as usual.
"The only thing a human child is going to want with that doll is to tear its head off and set it on fire," she had proclaimed with grim confidence. That particular night, the clan had been enjoying a visit from Luach and his family, and Fox brought up the subject for the umpteenth time, hoping to garner some support for the idea from Adelpha's long-time friend. She'd brought a new prototype to show them and suggested that their toddler-age twin boys might enjoy playing with it.
"I daresay, it might do some good, my friend," Luach had pointed out as he examined the doll with an approving smile and handed it to one of his sons.
"I don't see how," Adelpha had scoffed.
"By teaching the bairns that gargoyles are-
"Soft, fluffy, and ought to be swung around by their tails?" Adelpha interrupted with a raised brow at the pair of human toddlers, one of which had the tail of the gargoyle doll gripped between his teeth as he spun around the stone floor haphazardly.
"Be gentle with the doll," Laura had pleaded with her son. The boy took the doll from his mouth and tossed it at his brother, who caught it with a hug and began to make it 'fly' around the courtyard, while his brother squealed and chased after him, trying to retrieve it.
"You're all fooling yourselves if you believe humans and gargoyles will ever live in peace as one society," she assured them bitterly, "It's best that we remain as much a mystery as possible."
"We cannot hide forever, my love," Goliath had growled in a deep, and slightly sad voice.
"It seems, we don't have to hide that much at all," she pointed out, "Most of them don't really want to believe we're here anyway. Even with all the unexplainable security camera footage, and the videos in the media from years ago, many still don't want to see what is right in front of them and they laugh away those who do. Perhaps that's the way it should be if it keeps us all in relative peace?"
"She has a point," Laura pointed out sheepishly, "Here in the city, many people have seen you themselves and have reason to believe you are real, but outside?"
She laughed a little bitterly.
"My parents like to joke about the New York gargoyles, whenever we visit them in Indiana. They don't mean any harm by it! They think it's all an ongoing joke. But once the kids were out of the room, I told them that they shouldn't joke because the gargoyles are real."
"What did they say?" Goliath asked her earnestly.
"At first, they just stared at us," Laura explained, "They were flabbergasted. But not because they just found out that what they had thought were mythical beings actually do exist, but rather that they had just realized that their only daughter had completely descended into madness."
Luach nodded sadly.
"After a very tense moment, they laughed awkwardly and her father told us we need to get out and 'touch grass', whatever that means."
"Later, my mother asked me how many antidepressants they had me on and if they were all being prescribed by the same doctor," Laura added with a groan of dismay, "And when we left, my grandma was hugging the kids like she thought she'd never seen them alive again!"
Adelpha gave Fox a told-you-so look.
"But that just means we still have some time to control the narrative," Fox argued with optimistic eagerness, "Eventually, even Hoosier dentists and school-teachers are going to catch on that you guys are the real deal!"
"Control the narrative?" Goliath repeated in a tone that clearly indicated that he didn't care for Fox's choice of words.
"What she means is, your ability to live in secrecy simply won't last forever," Xanatos interjected in a far more diplomatic manner, "Despite no official confirmation or denial from the mayor's office , most of the people in New York whole-heartedly believe that your clan is real now. Oh, there's a few scoffers yet, but before long, I believe the rest of the world will be faced with irrefutable evidence that gargoyles are real."
"And we want that to come off as good news," Fox explained excitedly, "And if we act smart now, there's a good chance that it will! It's all in the marketing. If we can instill the idea in the minds of young kids that gargoyles are good, trustworthy, and here to protect them from the 'bad guys', they will be thrilled to find out that their childhood heroes are reality. Meanwhile, the parents won't find it the least bit concerning because, after all, they're just toys."
Goliath had sighed at Fox's words and Adelpha glanced at him suspiciously, a little surprised that he would take her side in this argument.
"I have always believed that Truth was above such disingenuous means," he explained, "Our lives should not be a 'narrative' to sell to children. And won't most humans see right through this 'marketing'?"
"Some will," Fox admitted dismissively, excitement still growing in her eyes, "But they'll buy them for their kids anyway because they're going to be adorable! And their kids are going to love them and they will learn to love gargoyles and see them as their equals. And eventually they grow up and-"
But suddenly, Fox's enthusiastic endorsement was cut short by a loud, 'rip!'
The adults' attention shot back to the twins, who stared back at them with wide eyes. One of them holding the wings of the gargoyle doll, the other holding the disembodied head.
"Boys!" Laura scolded, turning red with embarrassment, "Oh, Fox, I'm so sorry!"
Adelpha, however, gave a chilling laugh.
"Don't fuss, my dear," she reassured Laura in a mocking tone, "After all, boys will be boys! Is that not right, Your Highness?"
Luach was torn between scolding his children and trying to assure his friend that they weren't natural-born gargoyle slayers.
"Please, my friend!" he begged, "Don't look at me that way. Those two destroy every toy they get. They yank the heads off their human toys all the time!"
"Oh, I'd be quite surprised if they didn't!" she replied, standing to take her leave, "Xanatos, you might consider producing a little accessory kit with a hammer, a set of iron shackles and collar, and maybe a tiny flamethrower for the little darlings, so they can learn to make a proper effigy. For a slight extra fee, of course!"
She laughed coldly at her own joke while the others glanced at once another uncomfortably.
"Do what you will with the design, Fox," she told her, "You'll make a quick buck, I'm sure. But it will change nothing. Don't try to pretend you are doing us a favor."
The group had sat in uncomfortable reflection for some time after Adelpha had disappeared. It was Fox who finally broke the silence.
"Technically, she said 'yes'," she pointed out craftily.
"That's what I heard," Xanatos agreed, "But, I'll leave it to you, Goliath."
Goliath scowled.
"It still seems like deception to me," he said, "But if you believe it will help…"
"Of course it will!" Fox insisted.
"But don't speak of it to Adelpha again," Goliath asked of them, "It is enough that she gave her permission. Talk of this will only serve to upset her."
They all kept their word and Adelpha had assumed the matter closed. If she had known how successful Fox's toy line would become, she would have been quite astounded. They started off exclusively in one upscale, Manhattan toy store, then Fox quickly made a deal with all the major souvenir shop chains. Pretty soon, every child seen leaving La Guardia or JFK was carrying a baby gargoyle in an 'I heart NYC' t-shirt.
Next, the NYPD made a deal with the manufacturers, and a custom character was created; Georgie the Guardian, who wore a police shield on his chest and was said to watch over all the children of the city. This move caused a tremendous disturbance, as longtime gargoyle enthusiasts shouted from the rooftops that this was irrefutable proof that the police department had real gargoyles working for them. The brilliance of this scheme was that a mob of grown adults triumphantly insisting that a stuffed child-like monster was an actual real being that prowled around the city at night, looking for miscreants, was not a particularly convincing argument to the naysayers and only served to further validate their belief that the gargoyle watchers were all completely insane.
By Christmas, the viral NYC Gargoyles toy line was on children's wish lists nationwide and marketing experts suggested that they appeal to older children with smaller, more durable dolls. So, by the time Orion had begun school, he found many of his classmates had a collection of the dolls hanging from carabiners on their backpacks. These had quickly disappeared after Joseph's brother had been killed, a fact which caused Orion's heart to ache, but the clan often saw billboards of Georgie the Guardian and cartoony versions of themselves carried by both children and young adults all over the city now and they found it most encouraging.
Adelpha, oblivious to the now worldwide phenomenon, had continued to fashion handmade dolls for the children of the clan and Bonnie was inseparable from hers. She called her little doll "Friend" and she couldn't seem to do anything that required sitting still without her. Poor "Friend" was stained and worn. She had undergone a good many mendings through the years, but she was still Bonnie's favorite and she now took pride of place beside her as Bonnie poured out her tea party. "Friend" was the leader of her own clan. Her charges were the many misshapen and otherwise defective prototypes Adelpha had constructed and Bonnie had rescued one night from a box in the rookery storage closet. They were now guests who sat in a circle around their leader, each with their own mismatched plastic vessel laid neatly before them.
Friend's tea party also had one flesh-and-blood gate crasher. One of Bonnie's rookery brothers sat awkwardly among the rest of the guests, perhaps a little sheepish about having come by when he hadn't been officially invited, but grateful for being included nonetheless. This round, shy hatchling was the last of his rookery to begin to speak, but his keen nose and ears had detected the scent and the sound of the crinkling cellophane on the iced lemon pound cake Bonnie had nicked from the kitchen. He now licked his lips and eyed the cake with eager, but obedient silence. He knew that Friend would not give him his portion unless he waited his turn politely and said, "please". Bonnie caught sight of Sister watching them and said in a high-pitched, authoritative voice,
"I am afraid this is a private party! But you may have a piece of cake to go!"
Sister laughed as Bonnie handed her a very large hunk of cake balanced on a very small, tin plate with Princess Aurora's euphoric face beaming from it, and then allowed herself to be dismissed from the party.
Sister slid easily down several layers of the spider web and landed on the mat below with a satisfying thud. Orion and Lyra had abandoned the training course and Sister effortlessly leapt and steadied herself on the beam where they had been training. She quickly tucked her wings around her shoulders and rolled across the beam, pausing upside down and balancing on one, muscular arm.
She had done well in her patrol training that night. Brooklyn had said so. She had followed her training and helped the clan catch two robbers that had broken into a pawn shop. They had recovered six guns, three of which had been reported as stolen. Even so, she felt a little down. While they waited for the adults, she and Orion had gotten distracted and started talking and laughing so much that Angela had left the others to come back and remind them of the importance of remaining quiet and alert. Angela hadn't been particularly cross about it, but Sister still felt disappointed in herself. It was a big responsibility she and Orion had been given and she was desperate to prove that she could leave childish mistakes behind and become a competent warrior.
Everything seemed to come so easy for Orion, she thought to herself as she continued climbing around on the training course. He had the patience and self-control that Brooklyn was always wanting from them. Sister had been chastised many times for comparing herself to her brother, but she felt she really couldn't help it. The second rookery had many more hatchlings, each with their own gifts and interests. All of them were good at something. But Sister and Orion only had each other, and Orion seemed superior to Sister in just about everything, at least everything that was important to a warrior. What made it harder was that he never let himself brag or lorded it over her in anyway. In fact, being compassionate and encouraging was yet another item on the list of "Important Things Orion is Better At".
Sister decided that she had practiced and stretched enough, but she couldn't bring herself to return to her studies. Casually, she walked into the library area of the rookery, where Lyra was still studying her oversized, ancient-looking book with a look of intense concentration and frustration. Lyra was so engrossed in the page before her, she didn't even seem to notice her older sister creeping curiously upon her.
Sister peeked over Lyra's arm and was quite surprised to discover that, aside from some yellowing marks, the page was completely blank.
"What sort of book is this?" she blurted out and Lyra looked up, genuinely surprised to see her.
"Uncle Alex loaned it to me," she replied hesitantly.
"But it doesn't have any words!" Sister argued with a laugh.
"It does...but," she looked down sheepishly, "You just can't always see them."
Skeptically, Sister watched and Lyra refocused on the page. When Sister looked at the page, she saw nothing there, but she noticed that Lyra's eyes were moving steadily, as if following some invisible image on the page that onlye she saw and that she found incredibly interesting.
"What does it say?" Sister asked and Lyra sighed and looked up again.
"Nothing, right now," she admitted, "Sometimes I think I see something, but then it disappears."
Confused, but also fascinated, Sister stared at the page, hoping to catch a glimpse of something.
"Why did he give you this book?" Sister asked.
"He said this book gives magical information to people who need it," she explained.
"It's a sorcery book?" Sister asked incredulously, a little hurt that Alexander trusted Lyra with magic but not herself.
"Not exactly," Lyra corrected, "It's a book for Oberon's children. It is meant to unlock the secrets about pure magic, like the powers that Alexander has, and the transformation spell that's on Adelpha…and Orion, Bonnie, and me."
"Does it have any spells in it?" she asked eagerly.
"Well, it might," she explained, "But Uncle Alex said it will only show them to the right person at the right time."
"Let me try!" Sister pleaded, pulling the book to face her directly. She squinted at the yellowed parchment page. After a moment, it began to look different, as if the page had turned onto a yellow cloud that swirled around an image of some kind.
"Wow!" Sister breathed.
"Did it show you anything?" Lyra asked, surprised by her reaction.
"No," she admitted, sliding the book back to her, "But I could tell there was something there that it wasn't showing me."
"Exactly," Lyra agreed, "Sometimes I get a hint of something for just a moment, but then it disappears before I can understand it."
"Sort of sounds like my Chemistry textbook. But why did Alex lend this to you?" she asked, trying not to let her stinging pride show in her voice, "Wouldn't such a book be kind of dangerous for hatchlings if it did show you something? And all that talk from him about sorcery being dangerous!"
"It's not sorcery!" she corrected her again, "He loaned it to me so I could learn about the spell that makes me transform into a human. He tried to get the book to show us over Halloween, but I guess it wouldn't because he told me it wasn't my time yet. But he put permission on my cardkey so I could go up to Mr. Xanatos' private library and try again from time to time. Actually, Adelpha is the one who asked him to do that. She was hoping that we could figure out a way to keep Bonnie from changing back into a gargoyle during the day and turning into a stone statue in whatever random place she's in. And I'd…just as soon turn it off completely."
Sister looked up in alarm.
"Why would you want to do that?" she demanded, "Don't you realize how lucky you are?"
Lyra looked back down at the book and shrugged. Sister flopped backward onto a large blue bean bag, watching as Lyra disappeared again, into her book, absent-mindedly running her talons through her perfectly sleek, black hair as she waited patiently for a sign from the realm of Oberon.
Sister couldn't understand her. It seemed so unfair, that Lyra was given such a profound gift, but she didn't even want it! What was so bad about never having to sleep against your will? What was so wrong with getting to see the sunlight, and having the chance to go into the human world and meet humans without being stared at or mistrusted? And as much as Lyra loved to read and learn, why did she forsake her opportunity to go to school with Orion? It made no sense to Sister and she could only assume that something about the human world made Lyra anxious, although she never showed it. Lyra always appeared collected and confident, even among her hyperactive rookery siblings.
"Maybe it isn't showing you anything, because you aren't looking for the right things," she suggested.
"What do you mean?" Lyra asked.
"Well, you said that Alex told you it would show you when it was time, right? Maybe the magic in the book is like the magic of Avalon. It doesn't show you what you want to see, but what you need to know?"
Lyra seemed to consider this.
"You may be right," she admitted reluctantly.
"Let's see," Sister replied, rising from the bean bag and turning the book toward herself again.
"Show me a spell to cure our mother's cancer, so she and Goliath can come home!"
The two hatchlings leaned against the desk, concentrating intently on the blank page, but nothing concrete appeared.
Sister sighed and flopped backward on the bean bag once more.
"Guess I was wrong," she grumbled, "Because that's the one thing we really need to know right now."
"I told you it wasn't a spell book," Lyra reminded her, closing the cover thoughtfully.
"I wish it was," Sister replied, "If we had powers like Alex, just think what we could do! Hey!"
"What?" Lyra replied.
"You said Alex gave you access to Mr. Xanatos' library?"
"Yes," she replied uneasily, "So."
"Maybe there are other books in there! Like real spell books that mortals can use!"
"No way!" she chided, "I only have permission to touch that one book! We would get in so much trouble!"
"Yeah, you're right," Sister conceded, "And we did promise Goliath that we would behave while he was gone. I don't want to start any problems for Brooklyn and the rest of the grownups. They're stressed out enough as it is!"
Just then, Broadway and Angela came into the library.
"There she is!" Broadway exclaimed, catching sight of Sister and holding up the copy of The Magician's Nephew that they had been reading from the last few nights. Of course, Sister didn't need Broadway to read to her anymore. She was perfectly capable of doing so herself. But the gentle rumble of Broadway's low voice as she rested against his broad, muscular arm and reheard the stories she'd loved as a young hatchling was a comfort she was not yet ready to give up, no matter how old she got. There was something magical about these quiet moments. Buried in Broadway's winged embrace, she was enough. As lovely, clever, competent, and strong as any child that ever hatched, at least as he saw it.
Broadway sat with a loud thud on the floor of the library and Angela settled beside him, against a large green cushion. Happily, Sister rose to join them, when Bonnie bounded out of the training course, dragging the other hatching behind her, and crying, "Us too! Us too!" Bonnie leaped into Broadway's arms excitedly and Lyra crept to his side as well.
"May we hear the story too?" she asked in her sweet voice and Broadway gave Sister an apologetic look. Sister sighed, realizing that her two younger sisters were probably missing Goliath terribly and it wasn't as if she owned real estate on Broadway's lap. So instead, she curled up on the green cushion, beside Angela, to listen to the story. The two younger girls settled under Broadway's wings and the other hatchling found his favorite place in Angela's arms, once she had brushed away the cake crumbs from his face.
For some time, the family sat quietly listening to the story, but Sister kept feeling distracted. As Broadway read and the others listened, she gradually crept back to the desk and retrieved the magical book with the empty pages, studying them hopefully in the pleasant quiet of early morning.