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about the widows of these Troll-Slaves here. I know that little Troll-Slave children will be crying for
     their fathers tonight, but I feel good. Very clear-headed. HOLY CHRIST! What’s that!”
    “It’s a spider, Mom. Just chill. It’s only a Death-Spider.”

    T HE TEACHER crouches and studies the lights of her house.
    Then he hears that mocker again, slightly hoarse, a quick knifeplay of notes. He looks up. The bird’s song seems to come from
     a nearby beech tree. Here at the edge of the woods, at the edge of Annie Laird’s lawn. He looks up. Studies the dark branches
     of that tree.
    He judges it to be a good climbing tree.
    So he starts to climb.
    The bird’s shadow flits away.
    He ascends, spiraling around the trunk nimbly—though he has two heavy boxes strapped to his back. Two olive-drab 50 caliber
     ammo boxes, each of them fitted into a bed of twigs and clay and leaves, so they look something like squirrel’s nests.
    He climbs till he’s twenty feet up with a clear view of the bungalow. Then he shinnies onto a limb and hangs one of the nests.
     This nest holds a battery pack. He runs the power cord from this battery farther out along the limb, and then he hangs the
     other ammo box.
    As he works, the mocker sings again. It’s a better tune now than the one it sang this afternoon. More ethereal, more pulse
     under the melody line. Night always brings out the mocker’s highest art.
    He opens the lid on the second box. Inside are five ICOM 7000 receivers, tuned to pick up the three “infinity bugs” in Annie’s
     three telephones and the parasitic transmitters in the TV room and the child’s bedroom. He feeds the five pliable antennas
     through a hole in the ammo box, and runs them out along the branch he’s clinging to, securing them with bungees.
    The four receivers are tied into a Motorola multiplexer. He fits an earplug in his left ear and jacks the cord into the multiplexer,
     and on the digital tuner he summons up channel one: 143.925 megahertz. The kitchen.
    He listens. He hears a soft occasional
pinging.
Leaky faucet.
    He touches the channel selector. The boy’s room.
    The right place.
    He hears the mosquito whine of a video-game theme song, and Annie’s voice:
    “Kill it? How am I going to kill it! It’s bigger than I am!”
    Then the kid, laughing: “Death-Spiders, you got to cut off
all
their legs.”
    Annie: “What!”
    Then the
snick-snick
of some video-game weapon.
    Peals of laughter in the Teacher’s left ear. Meanwhile his right ear picks up a little of the real thing, the kid’s actual
     laugh, coming directly, faintly, from the house.
    “Die!” shrieks Annie. “Why don’t you
die?
”
    “All its legs, Mom!”
    “I can’t!”
    “Watch out! Troll-Slaves!”
    “Oh, for God’s, help!”
    Snick-snick. Snick-snick.
    Annie crying out, “Aaaaiiiieeeeee…”
    The music plays a slow dismal dirge.
    Oliver says, “You clown.”
    Still, he begs her to stay and play another game.
    She will not, though. She says she has to work. The Teacher sees movement at the bungalow’s upstairs window. The flash of
     her maroon shirt, and then he hears her clopping down the stairs.
    He adjusts the channel selector and picks up the kitchen. He hears her humming that video-game tune. He sees her in the yellow
     light of the kitchen window. She pauses at the fridge. Three leaves go tumbling past the windowframe, the frame of light.
     She takes a long pull from some bottle. She stands there, not moving. She looks out the window into the absorbing dark. He
     hears her sigh. Even from this far, he can see a wooziness in the way she’s standing—she’s utterly worn out.
    Then she collects herself. And with her weight on her toes, forced jauntiness, she steps outside. Letting the screen door
     slam behind her, she moves into the darkness of the driveway. The light comes on in her barn-studio. She goes in and shuts
     the door.
    A minute later a Joan Armatrading song comes pouring from her boom