48- Hiding Secrets
"At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison…" — Colossians 4:3
Where to begin?
Is there a beginning, even? Can you date the birth of a hell that exists outside of time?
Can you even give a name to the worst thing you've ever done, that anyone could ever do?
But this nameless, ageless destruction was Joey's child, and so it was his responsibility to do these things whether he wanted to or not.
And certainly, he did not want to.
Of course, this wasn't what Joey really longed for as his son. This was a forced adoption, a punishment for wanting too much and giving back too little.
A mistake he'd have an eternity to learn from but with not a sliver of a second to allow redemption.
The young man with dark hair, pale skin, and eyes that seemed to glimmer with every wonder in the world. Did it begin with this boy? No. But it was about him. Involved him. Centered him. Attached to him.
Even though he was long gone for years to come.
When his business partner left, Joey's heart ached beyond imagination. He was so much more than a coworker; so much more than a spark in the dark, leading to hopeful futures; so much more than an aura that cast his gentle, loving hue onto a world that tried to choke color wherever it be found.
With him gone, so was his purpose. It wasn't only the studio but also the old man's life that the young animator walked out of, and so neither would be the same again.
But the final push to bring the horrors of sorrow into tangibility was by Mr. Drew's own hand.
Now, Joey always believed in magic. Not just "industry magic," "studio magic," "cartoon magic," but…real, otherworldly forces beyond mortal conception that pushed and pulled human beings into the directions they were destined to coast upon, inexplicable like the flow of water within a rushing stream. This was how and why lives changed, people changed…relationships changed.
But if this force could tear two people apart, couldn't it be used to bring them back together again?
…No, most would insist. We cannot change what has already been done. We cannot alter the nature of being, and so we are helpless but to drift where we were intended to go.
But surely, certainly, this was not what life intended! They were everything to each other; the world seemed purposeful, joyous, safe. His absence took these comforts away and left only the hollow ache of an empty life, nothing left ahead to look forward to; not even death could save him from the pains of an afterlife of knowing he could never again have what made his very soul alive.
And so Joey knew that magic not only shaped the world but controlled its tides, and like a dam he would stop the gush of false destiny in its tracks. If humans could halt water's natural flow into place, so could he with his own river of time.
But only if he called upon that which made it move at all.
Eventually he found what he had been looking for. A solution- indeed, the only thing that made sense in a world of nonsense. It would bring him back.
Joey would bring his son- his family- back.
But the price to be paid was for it to take everything from everyone.
"It all went wrong."
Joey stopped in his steps. As the spirit grated by lost but unending time had reached inside himself to explain unexplainable feelings and events, his feet had wandered with his mind and Francine had no choice but to abide if she wanted to follow; and so, as he rested halfway in a path of memory, she paused alongside, gazing at an expression she could never understand.
Up until now, they had traced the edge of the ocean of ink- a vast ocean that glimmered at its edges even without a sun on its horizon. It was like walking upon the beach in a movie as the protagonist allowed a sage to bestow upon them wisdom, and certainly…that's how it felt to her now.
Except that wisdom in their circumstance was the comprehension that no one could ever truly comprehend this.
"When the ritual was completed…" he finally began again, confronting the inevitable, "…my beloved studio- everything he and I had worked so hard to create and maintain- had fallen to this horrible darkness you see before us now."
Then a sigh heavy with a moment's regret stewed over decades upon decades of reflection fell from his lips, and his eyes closed shut.
Maybe to deny seeing his own curse all around them.
"…And everyone we trusted to make our dreams come true were the ones that suffered for it."
The slow close of his eyes now began to push a wrinkle into his cheeks, its forcefulness growing and growing as reminiscence soured into remorse. A face still scared with a lifetime of laughter long, long since he did so last bent as laugh lines curved with gritting teeth and a deepening frown.
"It should have been me and me alone to atone for my sin," Joey confessed with a voice hoarse as it spoke from the heart instead of the tip of his tongue, "No one else did anything wrong but me, and yet-"
Again, a fist to his mouth. But it wasn't to politely hide a cough this time. It served as a gag as the next words made him sick to his stomach in release.
"-They lost even more than I did."
And suddenly Francine- a being accustomed to the lull of attempting to comfort others who needed it, despite needing it herself- didn't know what to say, do, or think…because…because…he was right. Joey was a man. Every other being lost to the murk had lost not only their minds but their bodies to the swirling pools and lingering drops of ink; it was an inkwell of spirits given forevermore to the torment of their immortality and the theft of their corporeality.
Joey himself only suffered from one of those two things. He would never know what it would be like to be adrift in the sea that lapped by his side, what it would be like to fight to have a body at all- even one that hardly stayed together no matter how strong, how passionate one was.
But there was, however, something he had to accept in trade for this.
She guessed such.
As the man contemplated his wrongdoings, trying to give description to the indescribable, Francine was lost in her own thoughts as well. Her brow furrowed heavily and a hand came to her chin, the knuckle of her index finger curling just a bit more than the others underneath a mouth stretched in both discomfort and debate.
"Joey?"
Eyes forced themselves open, but the cursed cartoonist could only manage a silver of golden-brown to look upon the person that called his name, the newest soul to be trapped amidst the immortalization of his suffering.
It made her dread what further pain this question could lead to.
"No one else knows, do they?"
Another sigh and he shook his head, flecks of dust flickering in the dim light as the slight breeze of movement put them in flight.
"No."
And then…firmness. His expression shifted ever so slightly. Still resigned, still hurt, but now…the dawn of something new. Something Joey never anticipated in his entire suspended existence.
"No one except you."
The weight of this was so overwhelming it took her breath away, and yet the power of grasping the worst of fates- realizing it was her own, as well- made it so all she could do was turn her head slightly, lower her sight to the floor, and bite her lip as sobs threatened to break them apart.
But she didn't cry.
Francine had shed many, many tears since she first arrived, and each time it happened she had totally broken down and made herself feeble to the hands of the studio. She couldn't afford that now- she couldn't- and so somehow…she composed.
Her voice was needed instead to ask what needed to be asked, the air about them waiting decades for someone to do so.
"Why?"
And indeed, no one had ever been granted the privilege of knowing so much that they could question it entirely.
Joey's chin lifted and even as the muscles in his face relaxed; his eyes remained slit as he stared her down as she stood in his peripheral. There was something about him now she couldn't put her finger on, and it stirred a storm in her chest as silence swarmed the air these few seconds it took him to respond.
"…You asked me why I was hiding, my dear, when you first came."
It was still a soft, light voice, but its tone was almost accusatory. The whites of his eyes seemed to have a stroke of light all their own.
"That's far, far from the truth."
As he shifted to face her, Francine noticed that not only was some ink staining his pristine cream coat; the round pair of glasses also had a black splatter painted upon them, obscuring part of that gleam that rested behind each of its sides.
"As I'm sure you've seen, the plague upon us treats every soul…differently than the others," he explained with a voice somehow confident in the unimaginable. And he was correct. Alice lost her identity, Norman lost his voice, and Sammy lost his memory. But Joey…what did he lose?
"My freedom," he answered her unspoken question. "This curse took my freedom."
A strange sort of way his face steeled, almost as if looking at her was to face his fears.
"It keeps me away from everyone else. Traps me. Confines me in body, mind…heart…and voice."
A pause. The woman could feel her mouth slightly open in awe, because-
"Somehow, you broke in."
It was stated breathlessly, matter-of-fact, and with a sharp, undeniable tinge of disbelief.
And maybe. Just maybe- hope?
If that's what it was, it was soon washed away as another realization fell upon his face.
It was desperation.
"After all this time, Frankie…I need…" A raise and drop in his shoulders, an inhale and exhale to steady himself. "I need you to keep this…me…from everyone."
…
…
Her expression said it all without a single utterance. Complete and utter flabbergast. And so Joey's expression sharpened again, knowing he'd have to put to words a horrible, horrible reality.
"I've done so much to hurt these people, my dear girl…and-…and you." He was right. She was trapped too, after all; the freshness of her arrival obscured but could not erase this truth. "And this wretched power watching over us has done one thing and one thing only in their favor, and that has been to keep me from hurting them again."
He kept pressing his case. She was never supposed to know, either, but now she did. And so…he needed her compliance. It was the only way.
Lest things go even more wrong in a place already defined by the word.
"This existence is more than hard enough without knowing- without…facing…the evil that took everything away from them." The brim of his hat tilted down, shadow falling upon his face as his voice was suddenly hushed. "I am more than willing to bear the burden of loneliness to keep it that way."
Francine, to her core, felt something about this. It pulled at her, nagged at her, gnawed at her heart. But all these feelings were so raw, so intense, that Francine didn't know how to argue. Could she, even? Her nature was certain from the very moment she stepped into these ancient halls; the woman was one of connectivity, empathy, and the virtue of sincerity. To hide it all seemed…wrong.
But as she gazed upon the man that spent more years dealing with this suffering than he spent truly being alive…maybe he knew better than she-
She swallowed and tried to blink away the doubt. She had hardly been here at all; he must know better than she…at least in this.
And so this feeling in her chest had to be translated into something else. If she didn't do that, it would implode her very being.
The hold of his hand when she first begged him to tell their realm's tale may not have been one of comfort, but this one was. She couldn't tell if it was for him or for herself, but maybe that didn't matter. She held all the same.
Joey gasped, and everything about his expression revealed he wanted very, very much to argue why she shouldn't be doing so. But as his now wide eyes looked for explanation…all she did was step closer to the black shore and stare at it, refusing to return his gaze.
All he could do was push away the knowledge he deserved nothing from her as she forced him to accept this kindness.
And so for just a moment, the two stood hand in hand as they faced the endless tides of black magic and altered destinies, the shadow of the demon looming just behind their ankles.