The Devil's Best Trick by Randall Sullivan

Author:Randall Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

PART TWO

The Door He Hides Behind

CHAPTER NINE

ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON in September 2014, just before the rollover from summer into autumn and a little more than two months after my first trip to Childress, Texas, I returned from a five-mile hike through the hills surrounding my home, stopped to collect what was in the mailbox, and felt my gut clench when I saw the envelope on the top of the pile.

The only visible cue for such apprehension was that, while my own name and address had been handwritten in large, well-formed letters on the front of the envelope, there was no return address. Yet I felt so wary that I held the envelope at arm’s length as I opened it and pulled out a single sheet of notebook paper that was covered with the same handwriting that appeared on the envelope. My dread was justified by the first paragraph of the letter:

R,

My hand is not my own in this missive. You are afraid and with good reason. You have been working for for a goodly time. likes the status quo.

The sheet of paper was already fluttering in my hands as I read on:

It is easy for to operate anonymously in this age when for many, all seems settled. You have been asked to throw open the door hides behind.

You have lied to yourself about what you believe conveys his work and evil deeds. Oh yes, enjoys a splashy blood bath, for it breeds fear and helplessness. breathes these like the air. However, best work is far more subtle. It is in the unkindnesses, the pettiness and unfair acts of spite that we mete out to one another every day. It is in the prideful judgements we make of one another and our inability to forgive even ourselves. To forgive ourselves requires humility.

This may be your last best chance to save your soul and as God has created you, it is worth saving, even as you act as though it is not.

I pray that you seek His protection and do what has been asked of you. Save yourself, if only for a chance for happiness. You have not had this for a long long time.

This may be your last and only chance.

By the time I finished the letter, my heart was pounding so violently that I couldn’t organize anything remotely like a rational response to what I’d just read. This person didn’t just know things about the book I was writing; he or she knew things about me. The few people I spoke to about the letter during the next couple of days all seemed astonished that I had been so affected by it; there was a hint of either mockery or condescension in some voices. How could I take an anonymous letter from some stranger who was obviously a lunatic so seriously? Interestingly, each of the friends I spoke to about the letter imagined its author in a different way. One referred to the writer as “a religious nut.” Another

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