Dead Girl’s Song
The Story in 100 words
The police arrive at that point. They look at me when they get out of the car, while I am pointing at the kids. They finally realize that there are kids on the platform and they see that a fire is underway in the apartment behind them. I knew that once the firemen would reach the three kids inside, they would disappear outside as they were ghosts of the ones dying inside. The girl died in the fire but comes back to live a normal life in the world of the living. She finds some sort of a boyfriend, she is singing and she gets a contract with a big record company with the only song she wrote. The only problem is that sometimes she disappears in front of people’s eyes. She can also suddenly appear in weird circumstances in someone’s office. She can be seen at times standing still with a horrifying look in her eyes accompanied with her two dead brothers beside her. Some people have visions when they see her like
that, they find themselves into her past and these events create
a puzzle to be solved, including the fire that she supposedly
survived. Once they have enough data, they find out she died in
the fire in 1797 with her brothers and some unfinished business
needs to be attended to so she can finally cross over peacefully
with her brothers. She needs to find the keys to the city that
she lost and give them to the mayor to finally move on. Long Synopsis of Dead Girl’s
Song
http://www.york.gov.uk The beginning sees a young man called Charles walking on the walls around the city of York until he reaches Micklegate Bar, one of the big entrances to the medieval city of York. When he arrives close to the Micklegate Bar, he sees a young girl named Sarah and two kids standing still, looking at the sky mesmerized by some unknown event. They disappear as he suddenly realizes that the gate is on fire. Inside the girl and the kids are burning alive. He quickly gets inside in time to save the girl who is rushed to the hospital in ambulance, unfortunately he cannot save the two brothers. He sees her being taken away. The same day we can see him dreaming of that girl he saved inside the little bookstore he owns called Worm Holes at 20 Bootham Street (this library exists and has a wonderful atmosphere inside). Who is she? Is she all right? He discusses this with his friend working for him and has just one wish, to meet her again. The next day he is walking in the Gardens near York Minster, there are the walls of an old church from the 12th century or something called St Mary’s Abbey. This is where he will always go when he needs to find her after she disappears, like if he needed to drag her back into reality so she could continue to live with the living. Otherwise she lives at Micklegate Bar, the place where she burnt and died, though he does not know that. So the next day Charles meets Sarah in the gardens near what remains of St Mary’s Abbey. She is very impressed and in awe by the Abbey, she describes it as if it was still there intact. Her friend remarks that yes, it must have looked like that in those days, and he believes it is probably even more charming now that only the walls remain. He finds that romantic. She does not appear to understand what he means. She invites him to her home, pleased to meet him again. At Micklegate Bar you would have never thought there was a fire, everything is still intact. He asks her how they were able to clean everything and replace the furniture so quickly. She is vague about this. She wants to sing him her song, her only song. And it is a wonderful song, perhaps like Forever Young of Alphaville or a song by Tori Amos. The words might need to be changed slightly so it has a story related to the events of the film. He is so impressed with the song that he wants to present her to his friend, a record executive called Tony. At the record company they are invited to sit down and then she sings her song again. Tony is very impressed and wants her to meet some musicians he knows. So they leave the office. On the phone the executive producer calls someone and says that he made a great discovery today via someone he knows that frankly is quite annoying and would want to get rid of, but something positive came out of him, this wonderful singer that will make them a lot of money. When he hangs up the phone, Sarah is in the office with him, looking disgusted by what she just heard. When Tony looks again because he does not understand how she could still be here, she is no longer there. He is shaken and gets a drink to forget about this. The friend working at the Worm Holes bookshop is walking alone on the wall of the old city of York. He reaches Micklegate Bar and sees a strange girl with her two brothers not moving, all looking at the sky. When he gets closer, they disappear. Shaken he goes back to the bookshop to tell Charles. In the bookshop they both compare notes, as they both saw the same thing, Charles on the night of the fire. That girl looks a lot like Sarah. They agree that there is something weird about this melancholic girl. Days pass in the bookstore without any news from Sarah. Charles goes again and again to find her but there is no answer at the Micklegate Bar. He goes back to the Abbey and there she appears from behind the wall in the ruins. She appears surprised when he comes inside the ruins by a crack in the wall, she had not seen him until he was inside the ruins. He invites her to walk away, but she can only get out by the main door, or what used to be the main door. He invites her to a restaurant but she refuses to enter as she reckons she cannot get in that place (it is a new building). The second restaurant is in an old building that existed at the time she was alive and that was acceptable, she was willing to come even though she is not hungry or thirsty. So he takes a pint and she sits in front of him with sadness in her face. They talk about who she is, she remains vague in her answers. We can detect a second meaning to everything she says that could be adapted as if it was all happening in the past, in the history of York. She talks of Kings and Queens, chivalry, her two bothers, her father in charge of Micklegate Bar. Here is her story as written on the website of Micklegate Bar. There is also a photo of her mannequin that is in the museum of Micklegate Bar: (http://www.jnmedia.net/micklegatebar/ghosts.htm) “Sarah, daughter of the York Gatekeeper in 1797, lost the keys to Micklegate Bar whilst playing as a child. Her father was fired from his post, and the keys were never found until Sarah was old and grey. Dying before telling anyone of the keys' whereabouts, her Ghost now haunts Micklegate Bar desperately searching for the keys. Did you feel that cold touch on your shoulder and see the shadow out of the corner of your eye?” Her name was Sarah Brocklebank. More on this website, and obviously Sarah’s unfinished business is to find the key to the city which she will reveal as the story goes along: (http://www.thisisyork.co.uk/york/guides/yorkguide/2003_9.html) “Even the city walls are not exempt from hauntings, as Micklegate Bar is home to the ghost of Sarah Brocklebank, daughter of Thomas the gatekeeper. At the end of the 18th century she lost the keys to the city whilst playing a game, and as a result her father lost his job. He never spoke to her again. Sarah became obsessed with finding the keys and spent her life searching, until, as an old lady, she finally remembered where they were. She burst in to the Lord Mayor’s parlour to tell him, but dropped dead before she spoke. Visitors to the Bar Museum feel her cold touch and see a small shadow flitting about, crying softly.” So Sarah tells her friend that he needs to find the keys to the city for her and bring them back to the mayor. Simple enough, though he does not really understand why. He is willing to help but when he asks her where the keys are, she once again disappears in front of his eyes. In the office of the record executive, Tony is very apologetic to Charles that he dismissed as an annoyance to someone on the phone. He wishes to tell him that even though he said those things, he did not mean it. When Charles is perplexed for this confession, the executive tells him that after they left his friend Sarah was there listening to the conversation. Charles tells Tony that it is impossible as they left together and she never left his sight. Anyway, Tony tells him to go and meet this band that afternoon so they can record the song. Charles walks once again near the Abbey where he always finds Sarah when she is nowhere to be found. Sure enough she is there waiting for him and together they go and meet the band. The recording studio is in old building, so it is OK for her to get in. They record the song and they leave. Outside he asks her why she always appears near the Abbey and never appears to be home at Micklegate Bar. She does not know. He surmised that perhaps the keys are somewhere in the ruins of the Abbey. So they go together to the ruins and she points to him where the keys are. They go to the mayor’s office and give him the lost keys. At first the mayor does not understand the significance of those keys but then he seems to remember something. He opens a book about the story of the missing keys in 1797 and cannot believe his eyes when he sees the keys in front of him. There are drawings of the keys and of Sarah Brocklebank. There are both astonished and look at her trying to decide if it is her or not, perhaps a descendant? Well, the mayor intends to throw a party to celebrate this event and our friend suggests that the song which is about those keys and events should be played at the party. The night of the party Sarah gets ready to sing her song on the main stage. The mayor is doing a speech about the lost keys to the city while Sarah tells her friend Charles that she will no longer be able to see him, that now she is ready to move on. She thanks him, tells him that she loves him very much and she goes and sings her song. After the song she goes backstage to the other side of Charles and disappears for good without anyone noticing. When she is called back to the stage by the mayor, she does not reappear and the movie ends with our friend crying of joy and saying to the sky that he hopes she will be happy wherever she is now. Strangely enough, after she disappeared, the keys are nowhere to be found, they are lost again!
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