Chapter 6
That morning Doctor Sims and Sara Thompson gave Mia an extensive exam with a portable ultrasound scanner and pronounced her very healthy, the twins were looking good and would soon be ready to enter the world.
Ayesha hovered around so much that Dr. Sims chuckled and asked her to watch the monitor screen while they did the ultrasound.
The end result was one proud grandmother calling for her husband and soon, phillip stood alongside her and they held each other while Sara pointed out the twins and all of their important bits.
Mia's three sisters sinuated in and also gazed in wonder at the monitor screen. Finishing up the examination, Doctor Sims announced, "We'll be coming up Wednesday of next week and doing some more prenatal tests and check ups prior to the delivery."
The next few days were taken up mostly with settling the lamia family into their new home.
Ayesha had chosen the house she and her family would live in and the bulk of their personal effects were placed inside.
Her mother's precious scrolls were placed in the building that would serve as an archive and store house, it had special shelving made just for the scrolls.
Each scroll had its own niche and the niche was labeled to identify what the scroll had on it. When Rachel Thompson finally saw them, she dabbed at her blue eyes and said in a voice thick with emotion. "Thank you so much Ayesha, this will be the beginning of an archive of knowledge for your people. As we find other sub species humans, their knowledge will be added to this beginning."
Rachel then handed her a leather bound volume. "When you find the time, will you write down your story, your own family's history? This volume is made of archival grade paper and will be added to this archive."
She grinned at her and said cheerfully, "Don't worry, we've got Mia writing one too!"
A week later, Doctor Sims and Sara arrived for the prenatal exam, with them came another nurse who specialized in difficult deliveries, she would be assisting Doctor Sims in the delivery room and had been briefed on Mia's case.
Still, the sight of a very pregnant Mia was not something Roberta Johnson RN and former combat medic had ever expected to see.
Her dark eyes opened wide upon seeing Mia and she exclaimed, "Lord have mercy! You are real! I thought Doctor Sims was messing with me when she told me about you!"
Roberta became all professional after that and soon, was assisting Doctor Sims with the final exam before Mia's delivery, while Sara worked her magic with the medical imager.
Following the examination, the trio looked over what would be used as a delivery room, a spare bedroom had been stripped bare of furnishings and only items for the delivery remained.
George had scrubbed and painted the room top to bottom and had stapled plastic sheeting over the windows to keep out dust.
The room even smelled like a delivery room. Roberta stood in the room with her hands on her slim hips and pronounced, "It passes my inspection Doctor, I'd deliver a baby in here without hesitation!" a smile on her chestnut hued face.
She turned to see the rest of the lamias gathered to hear her opinion on the room and she gaped briefly before blurting out, "They sure never told me about lamias in school and now I'm seeing a bunch of 'em!"
Doctor Sims chuckled and said, "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help, Roberta. I figured with your experiences in the military, that a field delivery would be a snap." Roberta grinned and quipped, "I can handle delivering during a firefight, but seeing women with snake tails? I gotta admit, nursing school sure never covered this!"
Ayesha smiled at her warmly and said gently, "I appreciate your help nurse, in spite of your fears you're still a professional. We lamias can sense when someone is uncomfortable around us and we try to keep our distance from those who fear our differentness. Believe me, we have had reason to fear humans ourselves, we were hunted in ancient times for sport."
Roberta smiled back at Ayesha and replied, "I've known prejudice and fear myself ma'am, being black means I get associated with negative things and I have been discriminated against by people whom I thought were better than that."
After Doctor Sims, Roberta Johnson and Sara had left, George and his in-laws stood outside talking about the impending birth, Phillip was inside with Mia talking to her, she was feeling very close to her father and wanted him to hold her hand.
Behind George came the sound of a rock falling and crashing through the brush, he saw the lamias suddenly lock their eyes on something and Katherine cried, "There's someone up there!" and she pointed over his head.
George spun around and plainly saw a face peering down at them from the rocks above the house.
The face disappeared and the lamias took off after it before George could say anything, he started after them and was quickly left behind.
Gamely, he struggled to catch up, crashing through the sparse vegetation and scrambling up the rocky face, using both his hands and feet.
Cresting the ridge, he saw them closing on something struggling on the ground, running as fast as he dared, George soon caught up to them and paused for a minute or so while he got his breath back.
What lay in a tangle of webbing, insectoid legs and human limbs was like nothing he had ever seen.
Finally he gasped out," "I had no idea you lamias could move so fast, you left me in the dust!"
He looked the creature over and said, "Now, what have we got here? Ayesha, do you know what she is?"
Ayesha smiled at him and replied, "She is an immature arachne, where we lamias share features with snakes. Arachnes share features with spiders. They typically live in caves or mine shafts or old empty buildings. If there is an old mine around here? That is probably where she lives."
George looked around and spotted the dark opening of a mine a small distance away, he pointed and said, "There is an old mine entrance over there, should we check it out?" Ayesha quickly replied, " No, I wouldn't. Her mother could be still in there and like a lamia. An arachne mother is not to be provoked, she might think we're hurting her child and will come with poison fangs bared."
George looked at the quivering young arachne and said gently to her, "We only wanted to see what you were, we mean you no harm. We'll cut you loose and let you go free, okay?"
He pulled a small knife out of his pants pocket and and carefully cut away the webbing that had entangled her so badly, after several minutes of this, he stepped back and put away his knife.
She unfolded her many legs and rose shakily to her feet, then looked herself over.
She still had strands of webbing attached to her but she was no longer entangled, she was free.
George was surprised at how tall she was, her reddish primary eyes were level with his own and her smaller, redder secondary and tertiary eyes were above her eyebrows.
Her brownish face was a bit wide and tapered to a narrow chin with a small, pretty mouth and ruddy, well formed lips.
Her shoulders and arms were normal down to mid elbow then a glossy brown chitinous covering covered the rest, giving her long, slender hands and fingers the look of being covered with evening gloves.
She wore a simple outfit that covered her human anatomy and was evidently woven from her own silk, George idly noted that it had no seams whatsoever.
Her hips flared into an enormous spiderlike form with a deep brown, almost black, chitinous covering that gleamed like polished ebony.
Her eight slender legs spanned well over eight feet and resembled an immense black widow's.
For a fleeting moment, he was tempted to look for an hour glass mark on the underside of her abdomen, but decided against it.
Unsure of what to do, she hesitated a moment before saying, "Th...Thank you for not hurting me." George and the three lamias stood absolutely still while the young arachne turned away from them and quickly scuttled towards the mine's opening and slipped inside.
George looked at his mother-in-law and declared, "Rachel is gonna have kittens over this one!"
Ayesha looked thoughtful and muttered, "As far as I know, we've always gotten along with arachnids, with her living so close to us, we'll be interacting with her frequently."
Rosalind said quietly, "She looked about Natalie's age, do you suppose they'll become friends? I do hope so."
George commented, "I noticed her clothing was all silk and there wasn't any seams, she had to have made it herself. I wonder if there could be a market for clothing made by her?" Katherine said cheerfully, "The Wharton's would want to meet her from what Mia has told me about them."
They turned and headed back down to the ranch house to tell the others.
As George made his way along, he couldn't help noticing how easily his serpentine relatives negotiated the terrain.
Sinuating smoothly over and around the rocks and bushes in their path, they made it look so effortless and he realized that lamias had such trim waists for a reason. Sinuating involved a lot of hip and waist movement and the muscles along their waists were quite strong as a result. He grinned to himself, it also made Mia a lot of fun to watch!