"Torchwood." "Outside the government, beyond the police." "Tracking down alien life on Earth and arming the human race against the future." "The 2 1 st century is when everything changes." "And you've gotta be ready." "I'm returning to the same spot." "I do hope they're here." "I have to move carefully." "Don't want to frighten them." "Now, then." "They're home." "They're here." "My little darlings." "You shouldn't be here." "Neither should you." "What you got?" "Funny sort of weather patterns." "Bye." "Didn't you see what the time was?" "I was on the phone, wasn't I?" "Well, shall I call the school?" "Don't be stupid." "She'll be all right." "Ow!" "Bye." "Bye." "Who's picking you up, Jasmine?" "Roy." "Your mum asked me to fetch you 'cause she's a bit late." "I promised your mum I'd fetch you, so get in the car." "Did you hear me?" "No!" "Come away, O human child." "Come away." "What exactly are we doing here?" "I had an invitation from an old friend." "Here we go." "Fairies?" "Are you kidding me?" "I suppose, I'm one of the fortunate few who's been allowed to see our little friends." "And it's been no easy task." "One needs to have the patience of a saint and the blind faith of a prophet." "But, for me, the long wait has been worthwhile." "This is my first picture." "Not that clear, I know, but the ring of stones can be seen quite distinctly." "I don't believe this." "Shh !" "Well, of course, I'm not the world's best photographer." "But this little person is just about visible." "I was so lucky to have seen them." "So privileged to witness such a magical moment." "Because fairies are shy, you see." "But I know in my heart that they're friendly, loving creatures." "Thank you." "Wrong." "She always gets it wrong." "Estelle, when did you take these?" "A couple of nights ago." "Where?" "In Roundstone Wood." " Not far from here." "So good to see you again, Jack." "Oh, look, there's the wood." "What's wrong?" "Jack and I have always disagreed about fairies." "I only see the good ones." "He only ever sees the bad." "They're all bad." "No, I refuse to believe that." "Well, I suppose one person's good could be somebody else's evil." "That's what his father used to say." "Oh, Jack, if only you'd seen them there in the wood." "They were happy, they were dancing, their fairy lights were shining." "Do you have any more photos?" "Yes, at home." "Right." "I need to see them all." "Something wrong, mate?" "Sorry." "Yeah, well, look where you're bloody going." "Got a problem, pal?" "Oi, pick that up!" "Oh, God, help me!" "Help me, please!" "All right, mate, just calm down." "Hey, hold on, you." "Just bloody help me!" "All right, that's it." "You crazy bastard !" "No, no, no, please." "It's coming." "It's coming !" "Where was she?" "Walking home on her own." "Jas, come here." "Do what your mum says." "You're not my dad." "Just bloody well do what she says." "All right." "You must never walk home on your own." "You understand?" "It's not safe." "It's all right, Mum, no one can hurt me." "Oh, thank you, Jack." "This is Moses." "Hello, Moses." "They're mostly just pictures of the area." "Come on, my darling, high time you went outside." "This is you." "Sorry, no, that's my dad." "He and Estelle were quite an item once upon a time." "They were inseparable." "Then why did they part?" "It was wartime." "He was posted abroad, she volunteered to work on the land." "Just happened that way." "If you don't mind me asking, did you know Jack's father after the war?" "No, we lost touch." "Why?" "Did all three of you ever meet?" "You, Jack and his father?" "Oh, no, never." "Jack contacted me a few years ago." "I was so surprised." "He's so like his dad." "Same walk, same smile." "I hope he's still alive." "He'd be in his early nineties now." "You could always ask Jack about him." "I have, but he doesn't seem to want to talk about his father." "Estelle, when you next see these creatures, you call us immediately." "Understand?" "Mmm-hmm." "N ight or day, it doesn't matter, just call us." "And be careful." "It's important to me." "But, Jack, I have nothing to worry about." "Just be careful." "Please." "Estelle shouldn't be living in town." "She belongs in the countryside." "How often do you get to see her?" "We meet up now and again." "Whenever she's seen her fairies?" "She calls them fairies, I don't." "What do you call them?" "I've never really had a proper name." "Why not?" "Something from the dawn of time, how could you possibly put a name to that?" "Are we talking alien?" "Worse." "How come?" "Because they're part of us." "Part of our world, yet we know nothing about them." "So we pretend to know what they look like." "We see them as happy." "We imagine they have tiny little wings that are bathed in moonlight." "But they're not?" "No." "Think dangerous." "Think something you can only half see, like a glimpse, like something out of the corner of your eye, with a touch of myth, a touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, all jumbled together." "Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it." "Like debris spinning around a ringed planet, tossing, turning, whirling, backwards and forwards through time." "If that's them, we have to find them before all hell breaks loose." "Why won't she play anywhere else?" "She likes it down there." "Other kids have friends." "Where's her friends?" "Must be something wrong with her." "There's nothing wrong with her." "Well, when's the last time you saw her watching TV?" "Or reading a book?" "Or playing with a doll?" "Or sitting down to have a chat with us?" "When's the last time you heard her laugh?" "Come away, O human child." "Come away." "This is the youngest girl and the girl's cousin." "I blame it on magic mushrooms." "What you do in private is none of our business." "These photographs were fake." "Conan Doyle believed in them." "He was gaga at the time." "And Houdini?" "Self-publicist." "How do you know so much about it?" "Because I wrote an essay on the Cottingley glass-plate photographs when I was at school." "And when the girls were old ladies, they admitted they were fakes." "So where was this sighting, then?" "In a place called Roundstone Wood." "Oh, I know it." "Has an odd history." "How do you mean, odd?" "It's always stayed wild." "In the ancient times, it was considered bad luck to walk in there, even to collect timber." "Even the Romans stayed clear of it." "I've had no report of any sighting." "You won't." "These things come in under the radar." "But they play tricks with the weather, so set up a program for unnatural weather patterns." "Right." "Are you saying our machines can't pick them up?" "Nothing can." "What is it?" "Is it God?" "Somewhere safe, that's all I want." "Just put me somewhere safe." "Got a right one here." "Look, they're trying to kill me." "Said there were flowers in his mouth." "Flowers?" "They're trying to choke me." "We checked." "Nothing." "And they didn't want to hurt that little girl." "It's just me." "They just want to hurt me." "They just want to kill me." "Who wants to hurt you?" "They won't leave me alone." "I've done wrong." "What do you mean you've done wrong?" "And if it's God, I'm sorry." "I can't help it!" "Name?" "It's little girls." "It's their little bodies." "It's their little smiles." "They're as bright as buttons." "Look, I've been in trouble before, so just help me." "Just lock me up!" "Please." "I asked Estelle about your dad." "She said she'd never seen the pair of you together." "Why would she?" "She lost touch with him after the war." "I just happened to catch up with her later." "Oh." "The stones in those photographs." "This whole area was forest in primeval times." "Most of the development areas have been built on ley lines." "Anyone could've made this circle." "Why do you keep doubting me?" "I spell out the dangers, you keep looking for explanations." "That's what police work's all about." "This isn't police work." "All right, then science." "And it's not science." "I know, you told me." "It's that corner-of-the-eye stuff." "All right." "JASMIN E:" "That's a cat, and now it's a tiger, a white tiger." "And now it's a horse, a white horse with wings moving through the forest." "It's looking at me." "Tiger, tiger." "Tigers can kill." "Show me the tiger..." "I heard you laughing, Jas." "Seemed like you were talking to someone." "Just talking to yourself, were you?" "It's lovely to hear you laugh." "I thought I'd seen everything in this game until now." "We had him locked up, for Christ's sake, on his own." "He was shouting the odds when he was brought in, said things were following him." "What kind of things?" "Shadows, he said." "He was going on about being choked." "There were four other prisoners." "They saw nothing." "Where are they now?" "Had them transferred." "CCTV?" "I'm dealing with that." "At first, I thought he was a drunk or a nutcase, or both." "Right, I want this place locked off." "Name?" "Mark Goodson, worked in town," "business consultant." "Cause of death?" "Well, going by the pinpoint haemorrhages on the eyelids and around the hairline," "I'd say oxygen deficiency, but it's odd." "There's no fingertip bruising on the face, no areas of pallor." "Nothing to suggest that pressure was applied?" "Nope." "Yet he suffocated alone in a locked cell." "Looks like it." "Wait a minute." "Never seen anything like that before." "I have." "Quartzite, the searching stone." "Oh, let the energies flow." "Help me find them again." "You know the dead man was a convicted paedophile." "He used to hang around schools." "But why the petals in his mouth?" "Just a bit of fun on their part." "You call that fun?" "That's the way these creatures like to do things." "They play games, they torment, then they kill." "Why?" "As a punishment or a warning to others." "They protect their own, the chosen ones." "Somehow children and the spirit world, they go together." "So how do we stop them?" "First we have to find out who they want." "And we can't trap them, they have control of the elements." "Fire, water, the air that we breathe, they can drag that air right out of our bodies." "Sometimes I think they're part Mara." "Mara?" "Kind of malignant wraiths." "That's where the word nightmare came from." "They suffocate people in their sleep." "Yeah?" "Jack." "It's me, Estelle." "What is it?" "You were right, Jack, there are bad ones." "They've come to me." "Estelle, we're on our way." "Stay where you are." "Don't go anywhere near them." "Do you understand?" "Yes." "Moses?" "God, Moses." "Silly cat." "Come on, Moses." "Come on, darling." "Moses!" "Moses!" "Come on." "Come here, darling." "Come on, puss." "Moses?" "Moses!" "Oh, no." "Oh !" "It makes no sense." "It's a fine night, yet the weather map says there's rain." "Oh, God." "Estelle!" "Estelle!" "Estelle!" "Looks like she died from drowning." "Rest of the garden's dry as a bone." "It wasn't your dad that was in love with her all those years ago, was it?" "It was you." "We once made a vow that we'd be with each other till we died." "I need a drink." "Where did you and Estelle meet?" "In London." "At the Astoria ballroom, a few weeks before Christmas." "She was 17 years old and she was beautiful." "I loved her at first sight." "But nothing lasted back then." "Promises were always being broken." "Estelle." "To have to die like that." "Those petals in Goodson's mouth, where had you seen that before?" "Was that during the war?" "No." "Long before then." "On a troop train." "Fifteen men, with me in charge." "Everyone happy." "Too happy." "Too noisy." "Then we hit a tunnel." "We thought some birds had flown in through an open window." "Then came the silence." "And when we came out of the tunnel, all 15 men were dead." "They'd been suffocated." "My squad." "Men I was responsible for." "But why were the men killed?" "About a week earlier some of them had got drunk, drove a truck through a village, ran over a child, killed her." "That child was a chosen one." "She's a nightmare." "Three hours, wouldn't say a word, just sat there glowering" "'cause she thought I'd nicked her special stapler." "Don't worry about it." "You okay?" "No, I've had a bit of a weird day, actually." "Bloody hell!" "What the hell's gone on here?" "How'd they get in?" "They smashed everything up, the bastards." "I'll fetch you straight from school this afternoon, Jas." "You don't want to miss our party, do you?" "I'd rather play down the garden." "You're right, she's spending too much time down there." "Don't worry, I'm gonna put a stop to things." "So what are you gonna do when they start building at the bottom of the garden?" "It'll happen one day." "Don't you ever want to have a conversation with me?" "No wonder your dad left when you were a baby." "He must've seen what was coming." "Who were you waving at?" "Just friends." "You don't have friends." "All the boys in my class aren't very nice size, mince pies, catch the buggers by surprise." "TEACH ER:" "Jasmine." "Did someone push you, Jasmine?" "Yes, Miss." "Who?" "Don't know, Miss." "Come here." "In the whole of my working life, I have never had to bring the bad times home with me." "I have never had to feel threatened in my own home." "But not any more." "Because this means these creatures can invade my life whenever they feel like it and I am scared, Jack." "What chance did Estelle have?" "What chance do any of us have?" "You said these creatures protect their own." "Yeah." "You mentioned the chosen ones." "What are they?" "How many are there?" "Tell me, Jack!" "All these so-called fairies were children once." "From different moments in time, going back millennia." "Part of the lost lands." "Lost lands?" "What?" "The lands that belonged to them." "What exactly do they want?" "Why are they here?" "They want what's theirs." "The next chosen one." "Hey, you !" "Did you tell on us?" "No." "Yes, you did." "Yeah." "Well, maybe you need a good kicking." "Get those teeth of yours kicked in." "I want a check on all unexplained deaths in the area." "What's the weather forecast for today?" "Long sunny spells." "It's happening again." "I can't understand it." "It's going crazy." "Just leave it." "Let's go." "Hold on to me." "I've never seen anything like it." "It was so sudden." "Then it..." "Then it just ended." "Kate, is it?" "Was anyone hurt?" "No." "Two children were almost scared to death, but they're okay." "What is it?" "I saw them." "And there was little Jasmine in amongst it all." "She hadn't been touched." "The sun was shining down on her." "It was..." "It was like an aura, like something protecting her." "Who is Jasmine?" "Jasmine Pearce." "She's a pupil of mine." "Where is she now?" "We're sending all the children home." "We have to." "Okay, thanks." "The chosen one?" "Yeah." "All right, you made it." "Must've been scary at school today." "It was fun." "Roy said you saw some of your friends this morning." "He said you waved at them." "Only Roy said, when he looked, he couldn't see anyone." "That's because they were in the trees." "Trees?" "What trees?" "The trees along the road." "Is this one of your games, Jas?" "No." "Want another beer?" "Hey, come on." "Come on." "So who are they?" "Just friends." "You should've invited them to the party." "They don't like parties." "I'm not surprised if they live in trees." "Oh, they don't always live in trees." "They can be anywhere and everywhere." "They can even be in this room." "In this room?" "When?" "Now." "Don't be silly, Jas." "Where did you meet these friends?" "Must've met them somewhere." "They said they'll always look after me, even through time." "When did they say that?" "I forget." "Oh, yeah, got big plans for this place." "Gonna extend the patio and landscape this garden." "Come on, Jas, hurry up with that food." "People are hungry." "So when are you gonna name the day, Roy?" "Oh, never." "Can't afford to keep her." "No!" "No, please, no!" "No!" "Jas, get away." "You can't do that, that's my own place." "It's mine." "I said, get away." "Ow, Jas!" "You little bitch." "That's all we need." "Just a bit of bad weather." "It'll pass." "That was good." "Where's Jas?" "Oh, well, she's around." "Ladies and gentlemen." "Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please?" "As you all know, today is a very special day." "Lynn and me have been together now for the past five years." "And not only is she my partner, she's also been my rock and my best friend." "And now we're looking forward to having children of our own." "Oh, my God !" "Come on, move!" "Go, go, go!" "Stay back." "Come on." "Go!" "Roy!" "Roy!" "Roy!" "Get off him !" "No!" "LYN N :" "Leave him alone!" "LYN N :" "Roy!" "No!" "Oh, Roy!" "No!" "Do you know you're walking in a forest?" "Well, you are." "It looks like a very old forest, and it's magical." "I want to stay in it." "You can see this forest?" "Yes." "But it's not here." "It's just an illusion, Jasmine." "It is." "Your friends are just playing a game with you." "The real forest can never come back." "Oh, it can." "When they take me to it." "They told you this?" "But what about your mother?" "Don't you want to stay with her?" "Come on, the child isn't sure." "I am sure." "No!" "Leave her alone." "Find another chosen one." "Too late." "She belongs with us." "The child belongs here." "No!" "She lives forever." "Jas?" "Where's Jas?" "Wait, wait." "No." "No!" "No!" "Jas!" "No!" "No!" "Good God, no!" "My daughter!" "Suppose we make her stay with us?" "Then lots more people will die." "They tell you that?" "They promised." "Come away, O human child." "Next time, they'll kill everyone at my school, like they killed Roy and that man and your friend." "How do you know these things?" "If they want to, they can make great storms, wild seas, turn the world to ice, kill every living thing." "Let me go!" "The child won't be harmed?" "Jack, you can't..." "Answer me." "She won't be harmed." "We told you, she lives forever." "A dead world, is that you want?" "What good is that to you?" "There will be no more chosen ones." "They'll find us, back in time." "They'll find us, back in time." "Take her." "Jack, no!" "You asked me what chance we have against them." "For the sake of the world, this is our only chance." "Thank you." "Jas!" "Jas!" "Jas!" "Jas!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "Jas!" "I am so sorry." "No!" "What else could I do?" "Come away, O human child, to the waters and the wild with a fairy hand in hand." "For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." "Seventeen disappearances within the last five months." "The rift is spreading, and it's dumping aliens and psychos wherever it fancies." "Where is everybody?" "Tosh !" "Oh, my God." "You can't fight them, they're too strong." "Help me!" "Stop them !" "Oh, my God !" " How many people are there down here?" "What did this, Jack?" "It can't be human." "How far is this gonna spread?"