1. “The nymph ‘quests’ upward for blood. It secretes an anesthetic to make its bite painless and a chemical to keep the host's blood from clotting and inflammation nonexistent, all so its presence will go unnoticed.”
The professor liked to talk about mountains he once hiked. He liked to hear about the places I visited when not at school. He wondered how bad the ticks were that spring in Northern Virginia—if they were out and biting.
“Oh, they are out,” I said, “Tick season has begun.”
We had run into one another by the English Department mailboxes, their dark recesses like gaping mouths, where pencils and paperclips got lost in dusty corners. We stood surrounded by open office doors, labeled with titles instead of people—director, chair, emeritus. My name was splintered on the old mailbox that I had been assigned four years earlier, when I first came to the university...
