Awakening: The World Dreamt and Imagined by Otto Mäkilä

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Miss Emerson?

Are you prepared?

I brought this.

Just get it ready. Get it ready.

Life given. Life returned.

Life given. Death lifted.

Take this life force,

consume its flesh.

Open our eyes to what is lost.

Memento mori. Memento mori.

Memento mori. Memento mori.

Memento mori.

Memento mori. Memento mori.

Who? Whose loss?

This woman?

This grieving woman?

- Darling?

- Oh, God!

Don't look away. You mustn't look away.

Rose? Rose, darling.

I can see you.

I can see you.

Life given. Death lifted.

Life given. Death...

Get off me!

Sergeant Evans, the curtains.

The door! The door!

- Stay there, Captain.

- Get off me!

If you're a captain at all.

Sergeant Evans, fetch the others.

You bastard. You'll kill him!

I'll fetch a doctor.

I'll manage.

- Ah! Ow!

- Another miracle.

Miss Cathcart,

you shouldn't do that.

Cathcart. Florence Cathcart.

How dare you come here

under false pretences?

Is your soldier boy even dead?

And this grotesque charade

won't bring him back.

Neither will your blood capsules

which you slipped from your cup

and your handkerchief as we started.

Nor your free hand pulling the wick

from this woman's candle.

As if the dead had

something against naked flames.

You're charlatans.

And poor ones at that.

Get them out of here, Evans.

Get off! You bastard.

- I've got your brooch.

- Oh, thank you, Evans.

Miss Cathcart, when you do these things

you've taken to

ordering me around a little.

I just think with you being...

What, you don't want your colleagues

seeing you bossed by a civilian woman?

Uh, I mean, if anyone was going to

order me around, it'd be...

I mean, if Mrs Evans wasn't Mrs Evans...

But she is.

And she's very lucky, she is.

I won't bully you any more. Promise.

You've never had a child, have you?

No, of course you haven't.

- Allow me, miss.

- Thank you, Katie.

It's all right.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Um...

- Who shall I make it out to?

- I'm sorry?

- Please, Mr...

- Mallory.

Mr Mallory, you'll excuse my brevity,

but this is my home.

- Very glad you enjoyed the book.

- I didn't.

- Excuse me?

- I didn't much like your book.

I found it too certain.

Perhaps that's only fitting

for someone so rude to strangers.

I'm a history master

at a boy's prep school.

Forgive my daughter, Mr Mallory.

She's not taking on any more work.

She's quite exhausted.

Um, let him speak, Harry. Please.

Um, I'm afraid Harry's right.

I'm really not taking on any more work.

But you are a ghost hunter

as well as an author?

Well, you can't hunt

what doesn't exist.

Ah, well, that's just it.

We think we have one that does.

I need to change.

Katie, will you show

Mr Mallory to my study.

- Yes, miss.

- I'll be fine.

You're fine?

Mmm.

We always know

why you throw yourself into this.

And we don't blame you

for thinking that it will help.

But every time now, all we can see

is the pain it causes you.

Yes.

I know. I'm sorry I keep

doing this to you.

It's not fair.

"May your skin be flayed from your body"

"in the hell you so arrogantly claim

does not exist."

An elderly woman in Dorset,

I seem to remember.

Our school matron

is a devotee of your book

and has told the headmaster

about the work you do.

She assures him you're quite respected

and your book sits alongside the Bible

on many bookshelves.

Miss Cathcart,

rumour is a dangerous thing.

Conversations in this room

are confidential, Mr Mallory.

Especially if I don't take the case.

Our school is called Rookford

in Cumbria.

Some years ago, a child

was said to have been murdered there.

Not a pupil.

It was a private house then.

Well, who? Did they catch the killer?

There's no record. It was

an important family. All hushed up.

Still, it's perfectly possible

someone died there.

So you're here about a death

that may or may not have happened

however many years ago?

No.

I'm here about another death.

A pupil. Three weeks ago.

His name was Walter. Walter Portman.

The day before he died,

Walter went to see the headmaster,

quaking with fear,

convinced he'd seen a ghost.

The ghost of the murdered child.

Well, how did he know

what the murdered child looked like?

This was taken 18 years ago.

Mr Mallory, this is...

This is an old school prank.

As the camera sweeps across

to expose the plate...

One of the boys runs behind the row

to appear at both sides.

He was still moving

when it reached him.

I know. That was 1902.

This was '03.

'04.

And, lastly, '06.

All the boys in the school

are accounted for.

All of them. In all the photographs.

Including this one,

taken just one month ago.

Miss Cathcart, I can understand a child

running the length of the line

in the 15 seconds it takes

for the camera to make its sweep.

What I can't explain is

how he could get there.

The Millford woman.

Either a batch of partially exposed

photographic plates

or the same ghost was

in my mother's potting shed.

It's half-term in two days.

We'll be lucky to get any of

the children back unless...

I'm not interested in the

commercial fortunes of your school.

There have been other sightings.

The boys believe...

Boys believe in Santa Claus

and the Tooth Fairy.

I'm sure some of them

even believe in God.

You don't need me

to tell you what happened

to that generation of boys, Mr Mallory,

and yet you don't see their ghosts

stalking the halls of your school.

Rookford is a boarding school,

Miss Cathcart.

Most of the boys

are as good as orphans.

I don't say that

just because of your circumstances.

Well, then, why say it?

"Fear is all I remember of my childhood.

"I have glimpses of my parents' death

"but nothing of our life in Kenya,

nor coming to London.

"Nothing but a feeling

of perpetual black terror."

Your tactics are despicable.

"Fear swallows children

and the adults we become."

These boys aren't worried

about bumps in the night.

They are frightened to death.

Please leave.

I was sent to request your help

and I've done that.

You strike me as a woman who won't

do anything she doesn't want to.

I'm at the Wellington Hotel.

Thank you for your time.

Semper veritas.

Latin gives a new school

an air of respectability.

Means they can add a pound to the fees.

And I should imagine a bona fide ghost

knocks it right off again.

Latin puns. What fun.

"Always the truth."

Let's see, shall we?

You can't wait.

You're that keen that

people believe in nothing?

No, without science

people don't believe in nothing.

They believe in anything,

including spirits.

So we need them. But you don't.

I believe in evidence.

Need has nothing to do with it.

And yet you carry

someone else's cigarette case.

Touch.

I'm sorry.

Mr Mallory, am I...

Go on.

Judd.

Hey! Knees, boys!

Miss Cathcart, this is Miss Hill,

the school matron. Maud to you and me.

- How do you do?

- Maud?

She's taken this very hard.

She's an odd fish at the best of times.

For a start, she liked your book.

I feel like I know you.

I've read your book

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