Tegan Clark slid the glass door closed behind her, mindful that the AC was on. Heat boiled off the deck boards under her feet as she scanned her backyard. Late afternoon sun dappled the grass. A robin splashed in her birdbath. Two goldfinches picked seed from a tube feeder. Beside them, four hummingbird feeders hung from the lowest branch of her walnut tree.
       But there were no hummingbirds.
       There should have been. This early in September, many of her summer hummingbirds had flown south, but migrants from Canada and New England should visit for several more weeks. This year, though, it seemed that just as ungraded papers and unpaid bills piled up, her hummingbirds vanished. This worried her. Watching their acrobatics was one thing she could count on to make her misery a little more bearable.
       Was something scaring them off?
       She eyed the trees, but there was no sign of a hawk. Her neighbors all had inside cats. No wasps or bees swarmed the feeders. Maybe the heat wave was keeping the birds up north?
       A dozen student emails waited for her to answer, but she lingered on the deck, fanning the front of her World's Greatest Prof t-shirt. She should make a sandwich, get on with her work. There was no rest for the weary, especially not an adjunct professor without tenure. Especially not an adjunct whose paycheck yet again had been half what it should have been...
       She whipped out her phone, checked her email. Still no reply from Gretchen, her department chairperson, about the incorrect paycheck.
       Just call her. That's what her friend Aubrey would say.
       Tegan wanted to. Hell, she wanted to tell Gretchen to take this adjunct position and shove it. Still, departmental politics were tricky. It wouldn't look good to call Gretchen at home on a weekend. And decent jobs for young English Literature PhDs were as few and far between as hummingbirds at her feeders.
       Better to keep quiet.
       As Tegan slid her phone back into her pocket, something buzzed her right ear.
       She jumped.
       A hummingbird?
       Yes!
       It hovered two feet in front of her, its wings a buzzing blur. It wasn't blue or green or red like most hummingbirds--this one was white as paper. Its tiny red eyes fixed on her, its needlelike beak aimed straight at her throat.
       "Hello," Tegan said and felt a thrill of pleasure when it didn't fly away. She'd never seen an albino before. "Welcome. I'm glad you're here."
        As if her words were a cue, the bird dove at her neck. She jerked back, flinging up her hands in defense. The bird's beak plunged into the inside of her right wrist.
       She gasped and made to slap the thing away. Instead, a listlessness streamed up her arm and swept through her body. There was no pain, no blood at her wrist. She felt only an overwhelming desire to remain as she was. She dropped her other hand to her side and watched, mesmerized, as the hummingbird gorged on her blood.

       "Tegan, a word?"
       The voice made Tegan jump. She looked up from massaging her throbbing right wrist. The pain was all she could think about that morning--the pain, and the memory of a vampire hummingbird drinking her blood.
       By force of will, she focused on Gretchen, who peered into her office with the pale face of an academic who rarely saw the sun.
       "Oh, good." With relief, Tegan leaned back in her desk chair. "You got my email? I--"
       Gretchen waved a thin hand. It was the same flighty gesture she'd used to dismiss Tegan's first six dissertation topics. "I wanted to let you know, next semester you'll be teaching the four evening sections of Freshman Composition."
       I hate those! Out loud, Tegan said, "You promised I'd only teach them that once."
       Gretchen shrugged. "It's that or teach two sections."
       "No." Tegan swallowed. Teaching only two sections, she couldn't afford to rent her house. She still loved it, despite yesterday. "I need the money."
       "I knew you'd be a team player. We'll keep this in mind--"
       "When a tenure-track position opens up, I know."
       "Patience," Gretchen said. "John will retire any year now."
       "You've been saying that for five years. You said he'd retire before I finished my dissertation."
       "He enjoys what he does."
        "So would I, if I taught seminars on Thoreau and Muir instead of all of these Freshman Comp classes. I didn't get my PhD to give endless lectures on how to cite sources."
       "Are you looking at other universities?"
        "No." A lie, but she hesitated to tell Gretchen of her job hunt. She rubbed her wrist. It hurt.
       "Good," Gretchen said with a sniff. "This might not be your ideal position, but at least you're in academia and not out in the corporate world." She said corporate world the same way some might say dog poo.
       "I know. It's just--"
       "Did you hurt yourself?" Gretchen nodded to Tegan's right wrist, cradled in her left hand.
       Tegan startled, knocking a pen off her desk. It had been years since Gretchen asked her a personal question.
       Three years before, when she was preparing her dissertation defense, she might have confided about the hummingbird. Back then she'd still thought Gretchen walked on water. Now, saying the words out loud would only make her sound loony. In the cramped confines of her windowless office, with Gretchen peering down her nose, it was easier to conclude the bird had been a heat-induced hallucination.
       Tegan retrieved her pen and tucked her arm under her desk. "I graded a lot yesterday. Now my wrist hurts."
       The oddest thing was that she hadn't found any dried blood or a puncture wound.
       "Pace yourself," Gretchen said. "You don't want carpal tunnel."
       Especially since adjuncts didn't receive benefits. No health insurance.
       Tegan seized the opening in the conversation. "Which reminds me, the email I sent you. My paycheck was too low again this Friday, and HR says it's because there are questions about my status. You need to fill out the form I put," again, "in your box."
       "I'm sure I filled that out," Gretchen said, waving her pale hand. "I don't know what the problem is."
       You are, Tegan thought, surprising herself. She'd always thought of Gretchen as demanding but supportive. She'd never thought of the chair as someone who'd let a colleague flounder.
       "Just, please, fill it out," for the first time, "and I'll walk it over. It'll only take a minute, and--"
       Gretchen shook her head. "I have another meeting to go to. Tell HR to call me during my office hours if they have questions. And make sure you rest your arm."
       Easy for you to say, Tegan thought bitterly. You're not calling HR for about the thousandth time.

       When she got home, she threw her tote by the door and banged a pot of water onto the stove. Others might binge on ice cream when they felt stressed, but she carb-loaded.
       She ate spaghetti with butter and Italian seasoning while pacing the kitchen, too vexed to sit. Her feet slapped the linoleum. Oregano and basil pinched her nose. Outside, cardinals and sparrows visited her feeders, but no hummingbirds.
       They're scared off by the vampire.
       No, that was absurd. Yesterday must have been a hallucination. She had been hot, hungry, and tired. The pain must come from grading too much. She would rest, eat regularly, and pace herself. Everything would sort itself out.
       Easy to think. Harder to do. Some days called for a gripe session. She plunked her dishes in the sink and reached for the phone.
       "Now will you believe that Gretchen is evil?" Aubrey, her best friend from grad school, asked cheerfully over the phone. Everything about Aubrey was cheerful. She was probably wearing one of her sunshine yellow dresses. "Come over to the dark side. I could find you a job in publishing, too."
        "I've thought about it," Tegan confessed. She leaned against one of the kitchen counters, where she had a view outside. No hummingbirds. "But all I've ever wanted was to be a professor."
       "Academia doesn't have the jobs it used to."
       "Being an adjunct sucks. The students can be great, but the other faculty don't think of me as a real professor."
       "All colleagues can be cads. You'll never guess what one of mine did yesterday."
       Tegan perked up. Aubrey told the best stories. "What?" she asked and leaned back to listen to how the coworker got reamed out for making an intern cry.
        She hung up feeling re-energized. Her problems weren't solved--she still didn't have her missing money and she hadn't mentioned the hummingbird--but Aubrey helped her remember that the world went on outside of the Ivory Tower.
       Then her gaze landed on her tote by the door, stuffed with more papers to grade. She groaned. Pain flared in her wrist as she lifted the tote. Like that, her good mood vanished.
       Grading was mind numbing enough when she could watch her hummingbirds. Now, as evening slunk into night, her mind wandered. Her wrist ached, and she wondered if she should turn the AC off. If her missing money didn't come, could she pay the electric bill?
       She forced herself to grade one essay then another and another, stopping once to set the temperature higher then once to plug in a fan. She ground on until she flipped a page, read the first line, and stopped. She was on the third page of the essay, and she had no idea what she'd read.
       She slammed her pen down. A headache stabbed at the base of her skull. It was nearly midnight, and she'd only read a third of the essays.
       Better go to bed and get up early to read the rest.
       She hated doing that. Her unfinished work would stalk her in her dreams. But she was useless now.
       She closed her eyes, massaging her neck. God, it was tight.
       Something soft buzzed her fingers.
       She gasped and snapped her eyes open.
       There was the table, strewn with papers. Beyond were her kitchen cabinets and pantry door, partially open. She didn't see anything out of place, but she could hear it. A rapid whir over the low drone of the fan.
       A fly. It must be a fly. Right? But something about the whir was too silky.
       Her heart banged against her ribs. Where was the sound coming from? The pantry? A thousand scenes from bad horror movies crowded in her head. Did she dare check? She reached down to grab her notebook for a fly swatter. Something brushed the skin of her collarbone.
       She froze. She looked down.
       The hummingbird hovered in front of her right shoulder. As she watched, its beak stabbed into the column of her neck, in the space above her collarbone. Its head bobbed as it drank, making its whole body quiver.
       She screamed. The listlessness streamed across her chest, but before it could overwhelm her, she grabbed the bird and hurled it across the kitchen.
       It smacked the refrigerator. It zoomed up, chittering like a tiny monkey.
       What she'd grabbed had been made of soft feathers and hard, straight beak. Not a hallucination, surely.
       Blood ran thick down her throat. It darkened her t-shirt. A matching drop of blood beaded at the tip of the bird's beak.
       My blood. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
       The bird dove back towards her.
       No! She snatched her notepad. "Go away!"
       It swerved around the notepad like a stunt pilot. Humming filled her ears. She threw herself out of her chair, smacking the linoleum on her hands and knees. Before she could rise, the bird flew at her. It spat a stream of blood in her face.
       The blood hit, warm and tacky. She gagged. When she could see again, the bird had vanished.

       In the bathroom, her hands shook so badly she could barely wash her face. She stripped off her t-shirt and pressed tissue after tissue to the puncture wound on her neck. It wouldn't stop bleeding.
       Did the bird have something in its beak to keep my blood flowing?
       She laughed. It rang, high pitched and hysterical. Good Lord, was she insane? Hummingbirds didn't do this.
       She pressed another tissue to her neck. And another. She turned on the extra light over the bathtub then plugged in her nightlight. Light, must have more light. The room smelled sharply of her blood.
       She tossed a dozen tissues in the trashcan. Another dozen. Finally, her blood clotted. She sagged against the sink, staring at the last tissue, still clean. It was pure white, white as the bird's feathers.
       She whimpered. With a shudder, she threw it away.
       Shaking, she sank onto the edge of the tub. She leaned over, breathing deep, her arms wrapped around her stomach.
       "Stop it," she said between gasps of air. "You're okay. The bird's gone."
       Her body didn't listen. She sat, shivering, rocking back and forth on the edge of the tub, until finally she could make herself stand.
       She dabbed astringent on her neck then put her t-shirt in the sink to soak.
       Good. Two reasonable, constructive things done. Still, she shook.
       Sleep was out of the question. So was more grading.
       Instead, she retrieved her tennis racket from the back of her closet. She turned on all the lights in the house and the TV, which she hadn't done since her parents first let her sleep alone in the house as a teenager.
       Then she brought a pillow and blanket out to the couch and curled up, her racket at the ready.

       When she finally dragged herself into the bathroom the next morning, her neck hurt so much she could barely turn her head. Pain spiked across her shoulders and down her back.
       Disbelieving, she massaged her muscles, trying to ease the radiating agony.
       The pain was worse than anything she'd felt after an all-nighter grading papers. Had she dozed wrong on the couch? Or had the hummingbird done something to her neck?
       "I can't afford a doctor visit. Please, please just be a muscle spasm."
       She downed Ibuprofen and tried not to wince in front of her eight o'clock class.
       After class, she shut herself in her office. For once, the windowless room felt secure instead of claustrophobic, a bunker against the world outside. She turned on NPR and scoured the Internet. Not surprisingly, there wasn't anything helpful about hummingbirds. A search for vampires only turned up what she remembered from reading Dracula. She drummed her fingers on her desk.
       WebMD informed her that she could have anything from a neck cramp to degenerative bone disease. Not helpful.
       She shut off her computer. Fine. The Googleverse couldn't help her. This was her monster, and she had to conquer it on her own. If only she knew how.
       She called Aubrey. "Can you come over this evening? And bring Mr. Whiskers?"

       She pulled into her carport ten minutes before Aubrey was supposed to come. Just a little longer, she told herself. Then we'll see what Mr. Whiskers's hunting skills make of a hummingbird.
       She slung her bag over her shoulder, wincing at the pain in her wrist and neck, and started towards the house. No sooner had she stepped onto the dry grass than fear jolted down her spine.
       She stopped.
       Everything looked--sounded--as it should. Evening sun streamed through the backyard trees and stretched a long shadow in front of the house. The twittering of finches and sparrows drifted up from the feeders. Her garden sneakers sat gray and well-worn on the porch stoop.
       Nothing out of place. No buzzing. Yet she felt an overwhelming urge to climb back in her car and go.
       "Paranoid," she muttered to herself. She took two steps forward.
       The hair at the back of her neck rose. She stopped, panting. Something was watching her.
       Slowly, she turned around. There was the carport, the driveway, the mailbox. Beyond was the paved country road, the blacktop shimmering in the heat. Nothing watched her.
       She turned back towards the house. The windows gleamed dully, the glass hiding what lay inside.
       Was something waiting in there for her?
       Car tires crunched over gravel. Adrenaline shot through her veins. Behind her, Aubrey's blue Prius pulled into her drive. The window slid down.
       Aubrey beamed, her yellow sundress vibrant against her dark skin. "Excellent timing. What's all the mystery?"
        For a moment, Tegan couldn't speak. Even with Aubrey here, fear coated her spine, insisting that something waited inside. "I think--" Her voice cracked. "I think I'm being haunted."
       Aubrey's eyes widened. One side of her mouth twitched up. "A ghost?"
        "Not quite." Tegan inched close to the Prius. She wished Aubrey didn't look so cheerful, but that was Aubrey. "Can we talk about this somewhere else?"
        "You're really scared, aren't you?" For once, Aubrey's voice was serious.
       "Yes." Tegan dashed to the front passenger door. She was about to climb in when she caught sight of Mr. Whiskers in the back seat. Unlike most cats, he loved a good car ride.
       "Aubrey, look!"
        Locked into his green car harness, he cowered as far into the back corner of the passenger seat as he could. His fur stood on end and his mouth hung open, his pink tongue glistening in the daylight. Hyperventilating.
       Aubrey took one look at her cat. She shot a glance to the house, with its dark windows. "In the car. Now."
       Tegan jumped in. Aubrey reversed and was on the road before she clicked her seatbelt on.

       "Did you tell your landlord?" Aubrey asked an hour later.
       "Tell him what, exactly?" Tegan hugged a pillow on Aubrey's couch. Take-out containers littered the coffee table at her feet. She felt adrift, barred from her home without so much as a toothbrush. "He won't believe me any more than my doctor will."
       "You have to call tomorrow for an appointment." Aubrey pointed a stern, un-Aubrey like finger at her. With her other hand, she petted Mr. Whiskers. The poor cat still shook. "Tell the doctor whatever you want, but get yourself checked out."
       Tegan nodded, wincing as pain shot up her neck. Doctors meant more credit card debt, and HR had reported that Gretchen never answered her phone. She rubbed her face. She was so tired, and even with Aubrey sitting across from her, she listened for the telltale buzz.
       "Hey," Aubrey said, her voice unusually tight, "something's going on in that brain of yours. What is it?"
       Tegan swallowed. She hugged her pillow closer. "I can't live like this."
        Aubrey's hand slowed on Mr. Whiskers's back. "What do you want to do?"
       There were so many options, all of them bad. She focused on one that could, conceivably, get instant results. "Exorcism."
       "No. No way. I saw that movie."
       "I have to. What if it follows me to work? Or here?"
        Aubrey cuddled Mr. Whiskers close, hugging him as close as Tegan held her pillow. "Okay. What do we do?"
        "You don't do--"
       "Like hell I don't." Aubrey scowled, a frightened, desperate look. "We're in this together."
       She's as scared as I am. Somehow that made everything worse. Sunny, cheerful Aubrey reduced to fearful anger.
       "So, what do we do?" Aubrey repeated. "Do you know a priest?"
       "Only Father Rick," Tegan admitted, "the campus Catholic chaplain, but he's deathly afraid of birds." Her mind whirled, trying to recall every exorcism portrayal she'd ever seen or read about. Beyond the fear factor, there had to be some useful information to gleam from them. "He might give us supplies, if I phrase it right."
       "Wait." Aubrey stared at her. "You want us to do this ourselves?"
       "Do you know anyone who knows how to banish a vampire hummingbird?"
       "Well, no, but Father Rick could ask another priest, and--"
       "We wait forever for someone to come." Tegan shook her head. She was so tired simply moving her neck felt like a monumental task. All she wanted was to sleep in her own bed, free of worries. "I'm not doing that. This has gone on long enough."
       "It's just I'm still trying to wrap my mind around blood-sucking hummingbirds, and now I have to wrap it around an exorcism, too." Aubrey took a deep breath, ballooning her cheeks. She let it out. "It's a little much."
       "You don't have to help," Tegan said, though it hurt to say. Already she was counting on Aubrey.
       "Oh no you don't." Aubrey's glare was fierce. "I said I'd help. I'm no liar."
       "No," Tegan said. "You're a good friend." She scooted forward on the sofa so they sat almost knee-to-knee. "I promise I'll do everything I can not to get us both killed."
       "That would be appreciated." Aubrey blew out her breath again. "So, we're really doing this?"
        "Unless Father Rick doesn't believe I need holy water for class purposes."
       "Okay." Aubrey set Mr. Whiskers beside her and planted her feet on the floor. "Let's go."

       At dawn, Tegan rode with Aubrey back to the house. All was quiet when she stepped out of the Prius. The squeak of the passenger-side door scraped the air. She swallowed. Her mouth felt dry as dust. Something, she was sure, was listening.
       "Ready?" Aubrey's voice seemed fragile in the silence.
       Tegan nodded. She tucked her phone in her pocket and hefted her bag onto her shoulder. She wore some of Aubrey's clothes: a yellow top and vibrant maxi skirt. If only she felt as cheerful and hopeful as she looked.
       The front screen door rattled on its hinges. She turned the key in the lock and pushed the kitchen door open. Aubrey followed inside.
       Dust motes danced in the morning sun through the kitchen window. Dirty dishes sat in the sink. A half-finished grocery list lay on the kitchen table. The AC hissed in the vents, as if the house sighed.
       "Where are you?" Tegan muttered. She stopped at the kitchen table, Aubrey behind her. To their right, the sliding glass door led onto the deck.
       Here goes. She set her bag on the table. Since neither of them knew how to summon a vampire, they had improvised. Out of her bag came an empty hummingbird feeder, bought on sale at Walmart. She set it beside her bag.
       So far so good. She pulled out a safety pin, already sterilized. She gritted her teeth and pricked her finger.
       Pain, and a bubble of blood.
       She smeared the blood over one of the fake flowers on the feeder. "I know you're here." She waved the feeder.
        She listened, straining her ears for the buzz. Aubrey kept still, her gaze darting around the room. She held a spray bottle of holy water mixed with pesticide at the ready. On its front was a cross drawn with a Sharpie.
       The feeder swung. Tegan squeezed her finger, forcing up another drop of blood. She wiped it on another fake flower.
       Outside, a robin sang.
       What would they do if this didn't work?
       Another pinprick, more pain. She swirled the blood around a flower's petals. If this didn't draw the hu--
       A buzz.
       She jerked her head. The noise was faint, a hum at the edge of her hearing.
       "Do you hear that?"
       Aubrey twitched. "Maybe?"
       "Where is it?" She scanned her shirt and skirt. It wasn't on her, or the feeder. It wasn't hovering by the cabinets or the table.
       Aubrey brandished her spray bottle. "I don't see anything."
       Yet the humming was there, a buzz that whined in Tegan's ears. She set the feeder on the table and waved her bleeding finger. "Come out, you bastard." She wanted this over already.
       "It didn't hide before, did it?" Aubrey whispered.
       "No. I don't know why--" She stopped. "Aubrey, wait on the deck."
       "What? No, I'm not--"
       "I was alone before."
       Aubrey snorted. "No."
       "Please." The buzzing teased her, taunted her. "I have to end this."
       Aubrey sucked in her cheeks. "Fine." She pressed the spray bottle into Tegan's hands. "I'll be right outside."
       No sooner had Aubrey closed the door than the hummingbird buzzed Tegan's head. She flinched. But it didn't dive. It zoomed around the room only to stop, hovering over the far edge of the table.
       "Shit." Aubrey's voice, muffled by the glass door, cracked. Sweat glistened on her face. Her eyes were wide, stricken.
       I shouldn't have asked her to come.
        Time to do what they'd planned.
       Tegan held up the spray bottle. "Leave now."
       The bird flicked its tongue, ignoring the bottle. She could imagine it licking its beak at the thought of her warm blood.
       "No." She curled her fingers into a fist. "No more."
       The bird hissed. It shot up. Chittering, it swooped.
       Crap! She ducked. It skimmed overhead, ruffling her hair.
       "Go away!" Aubrey banged on the deck door. "Stop bothering my friend."
       Tegan spun, tracking the bird with her spray bottle. One piece of vampire lore she counted on: Since vampires needed to be invited in, they could also be un-invited out.
       Hadn't she first told the bird that it was welcome?
       "Get out." She spritzed the bird. "You're not welcome here anymore. I un-invite you."
       It shook itself, flinging drops of spray. She cheered internally, imagining it writhing in pain.
       Instead it dove. Fast as a thought, its beak pierced the back of her spray-bottle hand.
       She shrieked and dashed it away. "Get off!"
       It spun, dove, and drove its beak into her shoulder.
       "No!" She seized it and threw, but it zoomed back, twittering, its beak piercing her cheek.
       "Die, you stupid bird." She swatted it away from her cheek, her temple, her neck, her hip. Its buzzing filled the room.
       "Why isn't it working?" Aubrey cried.
       "I don't know!" As fast as Tegan swatted it, it came at her again, a relentless white ball of malice.
       She had welcomed it, so why didn't the un-invitation work? Unless it was because she'd been on the deck when she spoke, not inside the house, so the welcome was a general one. How could she un-invite a vampire from all of her life?
       "Screw it, I'm coming in." Aubrey shoved the glass door open. She waved her sweater like a toreador's cape. "Get out, bird!"
       The bird cheeped, swooped around Aubrey's sweater, and dove again at Tegan.
       "No!" Tegan twisted. Something clattered to the floor.
       Her phone.
       She scooped it up, shoved it back into her pocket, and froze.
       She remembered. The bird had appeared after she'd pocketed her phone on the deck, right after she'd failed to call Gretchen.
       That was it.
       "I know how to get rid of it!"
       Aubrey shoved the bird off Tegan's back. "How?"
        "I have to call Gretchen. Keep it busy."
       Aubrey stared at her as if she'd lost her mind, but she gamely snapped her rolled-up sweater at the bird. It soared high, skimming the ceiling.
       Tegan hunched down by the table, the wall hard against her back. Her hands sweated so badly she could hardly hold the phone. Was it really as easy as just calling Gretchen? As if talking to Gretchen was ever easy.
       She crossed her fingers. Their tips where she'd pricked her skin stung as she dialed Gretchen's office number.
       "Why are you calling so early?" Gretchen demanded.
       The hummingbird buzzed the table, and Tegan flinched. "I need--" She started as Aubrey snapped her sweater and the bird veered away.
       "Well, it's good you called," Gretchen said. "John needs surgery. He'll be out the rest of the semester. You're getting four of his Comp students in each of your sections."
       Tegan gaped.
       Four students per section almost made an entire extra class to teach. No amount of late-night phone calls with Aubrey could keep her sane during those grading sessions.
       A hiss. The hummingbird's beak pierced her right wrist. Its red eye glared at her.
       She gasped, nearly dropped her phone. She swiped, but the bird dodged, grimly keeping its beak in her skin. Aubrey flicked her sweater, catching Tegan on the cheek but missing the hummingbird.
       Sorry! Aubrey mouthed.
       "Are you still there?" Gretchen demanded. "Did you hear me?"
       Simply calling Gretchen hadn't worked.
       Tegan tightened her grip on her phone. She fixed her gaze on the bird, its throat working as it drank, and told Gretchen what she should have said that afternoon on the deck: "No."
       "What?" Gretchen asked.
       The bird shuddered as if struck.
       "No. I'm not going to do it." The words were surprisingly easy to say. The bird fell back, its beak leaving her skin. "I quit. And, as soon as I hang up, I'm calling the dean and the Labor Department and reporting you for failing to complete the paperwork I need for my paycheck. Good luck with those conversations."
       She was shaking as she hung up. Oh, God, what did I just do?
       Aubrey beamed at her.
       The hummingbird hovered weakly over the dining room table, struggling to stay aloft.
       "You, too." Tegan stood, looming over it. "I quit."
       It shrieked. As if suddenly hollow, it crumpled, contracting to a single spot of white. With a puff, it vanished.
       Silence. Tegan took a shuddering breath. She lowered her phone.
       "Is it gone?" Aubrey asked.
       "It better be. I'm out of a job now." Tegan pressed both hands on top of the table. There were no bits of white feathers, no sign that a bird had been there.
       "Look!" Aubrey pointed into the yard.
       Something small darted past the deck.
       Not again. Tegan's throat closed.
       The small thing flew across the yard. It was dark. Tegan pressed her nose to the glass. As she watched, a hummingbird, a real hummingbird, bent to drink from one of her feeders.
       She breathed out. There was only one, but it was a start. She watched it happily as she called the dean.

       Reinventing herself wasn't easy. But then, neither was chasing off a vampire hummingbird.
       "To Tegan, the world's best grant writer." Aubrey clinked her mug of tea to Tegan's.
       Tegan's new mug said just that: World's Best Grant Writer. She wondered what job Gretchen claimed these days. The woman was on unpaid leave, pending an investigation for misappropriating departmental funds. "Thanks for helping me get the job."
       "That's what friends are for."
       She put her feet up on one of her deck chairs. It was a lovely spring evening. Robins flocked to her birdbath. Daffodils bloomed at the base of the deck. And under the walnut tree, the first dozen hummingbirds of the year drank from her feeders.