Milénium

AS CHRISTMAS APPROACHES... FRANK EXPERIENCES VISIONS FROM HIS CHILDHOOD WHEN JORDAN CLAIMS TO HAVE BEEN VISITED BY THE SPIRIT OF HER DEAD GRANDMOTHER. In flashback, five-year-old Frank Black draws the form of an angel. A woman, her face unseen, writes the date "12/24/1946" on the bottom of the paper. In the current day, Frank returns home with an armload of Christmas decorations and gifts. He listens to messages on his answering machine, the first a reminder from Jordan regarding her upcoming Christmas pageant, the second from Frank's estranged father. Without listening to the entire message, Frank deletes all calls. Shortly thereafter, Frank receives a Christmas card bearing the likeness of an angel. Frank turns the card over and examines the postmark, which is dated "December 24, 1946." Jordan and Catherine pay Frank a visit on Christmas Eve. Jordan shows Roedecker one of her Christmas presents, a virtual pet... which turns out to be the same gift Frank purchased for his daughter. Frank travels to a toy store to buy Jordan a different gift. There he experiences a vision from his childhood, one in which he asks his sickly mother, Linda, for a toy. When the flashback ends, Frank is assisted by three store clerks: Caspar, Balthazar and Melchior. The men attempt to steer Frank towards a specific toy, but Frank insists up a Danny Dinosaur doll. When Frank exits the store, he sees the image of a young man, Simon, reflected in a shop window where an angel mannequin presides over a Nativity scene. Simon says "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," words said by Frank's mother in his vision. But when Frank whirls around, Simon has disappeared. When Frank attends Jordan's pageant, he again sees Simon, this time standing in the back of the church. He follows the vision outside, into the churchyard. Simon explains that ghosts, or fetches, the souls of those who are destined to die during the following year, make "their way to the church in search of those who will soon be their companions." Later, after the pageant ends, Catherine tells him a piece of paper containing a crudely drawn angel made by her daughter--who claims she was assisted by her dead grandmother. Frank realizes Jordan received Danny Dinosaur as a Christmas gift the previous year. He returns to the toy store, where he asks the three clerks for a doll. The clerks point him in the direction of an aisle containing a variety of dolls--including an angel. But when he picks up the angel, its face transforms into a hideous death mask. Though the doll returns to its proper form, an angry and frustrated Frank marches out of the store emptyhanded. Frank returns home and retrieves a piece of paper from a box of personal memoribilia. On the paper is an angel identical to the one drawn by Jordan. Frank invites Lara Means to his house to discuss the events of the past day. Lara describes how she first began feeling the presence of angels, and how, one day, she accurately predicted the death of her father's business associate. She has been seeing angels--whom she believes are messengers--ever since. Lara concludes that the angels are attempting to communicate with Frank. Frank returns to his father Henry's house. There, he enters the room where his mother died by herself. He discovers that every inch of wallspace has been covered with images of angels. In flashback, Frank recalls his mother saying goodbye to him for the very last time. Afterward, Henry describes how Linda first predicted the death of her brother, Joe, during the invasion of Normandy in 1945. Though Henry believed his wife's words, he feared she might be institutionalized if word of her ability spread. Eventually, Linda's prescience tore them apart. Finally, Linda fortold her own death. Though Henry admits he believed her, he nonetheless acted as if Linda was crazy. Before she died, Linda told Henry she would move an angel figurine "from the other side," as proof she was waiting for him. But the...