Sarah entered the combination and raised the garage door, and the two girls headed inside to find out what had become of the harpy-girl's parents. At first Sarah wasn't sure how Karyn was going to get up the large concrete step going from the garage into the house, but she had another opportunity to watch in envy as Karyn braced herself against both walls of the entryway with her tentacles, lifted herself into the air, and reached down with her human arms to lift her wheelchair up into the house. She was breathing a bit heavily afterwards, but still...what Sarah wouldn't have given for something even half that useful!
After Karyn had caught her breath and Sarah had suppressed her envy, they commenced with the search. The house wasn't a shambles, at least, but it didn't look like anybody had been taking care of it in the past few days. Unnervingly, there were things that indicated that it had been abandoned quickly; a bowl of cereal, soggy with sour milk, the spoon still in, dishes left undone in the sink, and the radio still tuned to Mr. McMillan's morning news channel. If they had left, who knew where they'd be by now? Still, if they were here, Sarah wanted to know.
She and Karyn searched the basement first and worked their way up, but there was no sign of anything until they reached Sarah's room, on the second story. The room was exactly how she'd left it, but just outside the still-open balcony door, built off the corner of the railing like a minaret, was a large and rather disturbingly precision-engineered beehive. She could see the occasional bee flitting in or out via an entrance on the outer side of the hive, and was about to hightail it when she noticed something.
Sarah gasped, scrambled back from the door, and turned to Karyn. "Yard. Now." she said. She dashed downstairs, and Karyn followed after her. They came downstairs and Sarah dashed out the patio door into the yard. Karyn arrived shortly after and looked up to see what it was that had Sarah so worked up.
In the middle of the McMillans' expansive backyard, there was a gigantic flower bulb, nearly six feet high. It grew from an equally enormous stem that was buried in pretty freshly-dug earth, and smaller vines ran in all directions from it. The flower was closed, but was slowly starting to open as the sun crept higher.
"That was not there before," Sarah murmured. She and Karyn just stared at it.
"Do you think it's one of your parents?" Karyn asked. Sarah shrugged. "I...I don't know. I guess there's one way to find out." She started walking towards the bulb.
As the two girls watched, the flower opened to the sun. They gasped as they saw that, sleeping in the center, there was a woman, seemingly not that much older than Sarah herself. She had warm green skin, pert breasts tipped with tiny blossoms, and long green hair, atop which was another flower. The tips of the giant crimson petals settled towards the ground, but curved up towards the base, arranged around her waist like a gown. Sarah peered over the curve; the petals didn't quite close the gap, and she could see that the woman had no legs; apparently, she grew directly off the stem. She could just make out the woman's slit down towards the base of the flower.
The sleeping woman smiled as the sun struck her, and her eyes began to flutter. Sarah jumped back, then started. The flower-woman's face seemed...familiar...
The woman opened her eyes fully, yawned, stretched, and looked around. Catching sight of Sarah, she gasped and then shrank back, blushing bright green and crossing her arms across her breasts. Sarah couldn't understand it; the woman seemed to know her, but she clearly wasn't her mother. She couldn't be...but that was possible, wasn't it...?
Sarah was interrupted from this train of thought by an approaching humming noise. She turned and yelped - not four feet away was a swarm of a couple dozen bees! She was about to run when she realized that they were simply hovering in front of her. She looked closer, and nearly fainted; they were no ordinary bees.
They were tiny bee-woman creatures, possessing only the normal human complement of limbs and lacking an insect-like abdomen, but the limbs, though human in shape, were covered in black chitin, and the torso was wrapped in yellow and black banding like a corset. A stinger hung off the tailbone and antennae grew from the forehead. The faces were fully human, looking like a multitude of her mother's not-quite-identical twin sisters, framed by the same golden hair that Sarah had inherited.
Sarah gaped. "MOM!?" The swarm bobbed in what seemed to be a nod.
Then came the voice. It emanated from no single point, but was remarkably clear, and sounded like one single voice rather than a chorus, though there was a persistent hum underneath it. "Sarah," the swarm replied. "It's good to see you. We're...I'm sorry, dear. I'm so sorry..."
Sarah began to cry. "It's okay, Mom. I'm just glad you're okay." She looked back at the flower-woman. "Is that...Dad?"
The swarm nodded again. "She's still not comfortable with all this, especially the nature of our...relationship. Say hello to your daughter, Paul."
Sarah's transformed father sighed, dropped her arms from her chest, and put on a smile. "Hello, sweetie." In contrast to the warm, hum-backed voice of Mrs. McMillan, the flower-woman who had been Mr. McMillan spoke with a clear high tone. She leaned forward, and Sarah embraced her.
"Relationship?" interrupted Karyn, who had been speechless up until now. "Are you symbiotic now, or something?"
Mrs. McMillan the bee-swarm giggled, swaying back and forth in the air in front 0f Sarah. "Mmm, yes. She produces the nectar that I need for making honey, and I have the ability to pollinate her. I don't know that we'll be trying that just yet, though."
The flower-woman's bright green blush returned, and Sarah began to redden as well. Karyn kind of wished she hadn't asked.
