'Nightvisiting' by Patrick Ness

On the second-year anniversary of her father’s death, Tanya visits his grave with her mother and two brothers. But when she goes to bed later that night, Tanya is shocked to see her father sitting at the end of her bed, apparently alive and well; Tanya is too taken aback to register that there is something attached to Jasper’s back: a thick, green tendril that leads out of the window, across the street and into a rift hanging in the air outside Coal Hill Academy… Unable to contact Tanya, Ram calls April, interrupting her violin practice of ‘Night Visiting’. As they chat, Ram hears a knocking at his bedroom window – and then his dead girlfriend Rachel appears… Matteusz turns up at Charlie’s house with the news that his parents have thrown him out for being gay; after he and Charlie go upstairs, Miss Quill receives a visit from her dead sister, Orla’ath, whom she murdered in the nest back on her home planet... Unable to believe her dad has returned from the dead, Tanya goes to her mother’s room, only to see that she is asleep; but Vivian is actually comatose, wrapped in a cocoon of vines and tendrils… When Miss Quill questions why her supposed sister is now in human form, the woman puts it down to morphic resonance, and then confesses that she is one of the Lankin. Tanya receives the same explanation from her dead father: the Lankin are alien soul gatherers who have a symbiotic relationship with the living, feeding off their energy. Tanya is still sceptical of her father and decides to test him, but Jasper just answers every question correctly… Ram runs from his home to find that tendrils now lead from every house and stretch across the street; he tries cutting one of the vines, but it repairs itself in seconds. Cautiously walking through the streets, Ram watches as an old woman takes her elderly son’s hand – and then her tendril whips them both away (and in Tanya’s room, Jasper seems to enjoy the results). Finding the comatose bodies of several people cocooned in vines, Ram calls April to warn her that the world is ending... Charlie and Matteusz enjoy themselves in bed, unaware that the window has opened and two tendrils have entered the room. Downstairs, Miss Quill continues her conversation with her dead sister, learning that her tendril connects to ‘the Great Trunk’. Orla’ath then offers Miss Quill a gun, to finish what she started in their nest… April joins Ram, and together they make their way through the vine-choked streets to Tanya’s house. Resting at a bus stop, April confides in Ram about her father: he was a folk singer and a drunk, whose attempt at suicide led to a car crash that left her mother in a wheelchair; April was given therapy, while her father was sent to prison. Ram and April then share a kiss… Charlie wakes from a post-coital sleep to glimpse his dead parents at the foot of the bed; they vanish when Matteusz awakes – then the two young men notice the tendrils all across the sky… Ram and April arrive outside Tanya’s flat and see the thick vine leading up through her bedroom window; April is reminded of an old folk song about the souls of the lost, ‘Night Visitors’. Charlie and Matteusz join Miss Quill downstairs; now that the boys have left their ‘love nest’, Miss Quill stops stalling her ‘sister’ and punches her to the floor. Quill tells Charlie to get her two knives, but he only brings her a screwdriver and some secateurs; as Miss Quill stabs Orla’ath’s hand to the floor and prepares to deal with the vine, Charlie notices all the missed calls from April, and learns that she is at Tanya’s place. Orla’ath insists that she came to offer her sister release - but Miss Quill knows the real Lankin are not like that, and instead likens the creature to a chameleon’s tongue, designed to catch its prey. Outwitted, Orla’ath dissolves into dust, and her vine retreats back into the rift. April and Ram enter Tanya’s flat and find her mother covered in vines. In her room, Tanya backs away as her father implores her to embrace him; Jasper needs to feed on Tanya’s release, and has never before tasted a race that needs such closure. Having made their way through the tendril-strewn streets, Miss Quill, Charlie and Matteusz arrive at Tanya’s house and begin hacking back the vines that cover it. April and Ram enter Tanya’s bedroom and move to block her from Jasper, but he just slaps them away effortlessly. Tanya finally takes her father’s hand; vines emerge from his body and wrap around her, but Jasper doesn’t get stronger, instead he gets weaker. Tanya’s love for her late father is outweighed by her anger at him for leaving her, and this poisons the imposter – but not enough to stop his next attack. Outside, Charlie and Matteusz watch in amazement - and not a little pride - as Miss Quill speeds down the street in a double-decker bus, which she drives straight at the main tendril. The impact pulls Jasper out of the window and onto the street below, where he promptly dissolves. All the other vines retreat into the rift, which snaps shut. As the stricken population awakes with no memory of what just happened, April, Ram, Tanya, Charlie and Matteusz compare notes, and then make their ways home. Miss Quill walks off with her usual contempt, and then reassures herself by checking her weapon collection at home. After reminiscing with her mother over the happy memories of her father, Tanya bids goodnight to the real Jasper’s photo, and then goes to bed…


Katherine Kelly (Miss Quill), Greg Austin (Charlie), Fady Elsayed (Ram Singh), Sophie Hopkins (April MacClean), Vivian Oparah (Tanya Adeola), Jordan Renzo (Matteusz), Kobna Holdrook-Smith (Jasper), Natasha Gordon (Vivian Adeola), Anastasia Hille (Orla’ath), Anna Shaffer (Rachel), Andrew Frame (Man), Janie Booth (Old Man)

Directed by Ed Bazalgette
Produced by Derek Ritchie
Executive Producers Brian Minchin, Steven Moffat and Patrick Ness
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC Three):
29th October 2016 @ 10.00

Notes:
*Featuring Miss Quill, Charlie, April, Ram, Tanya and Matteusz

*This episode was later shown on BBC 1 on 23rd January 2017 @ 10.45 pm