Luke nodded. He felt a little less on edge with the bowler hat ghost gone. "My dad flipped houses when I was a kid. The summer of '92, he moved us into Hill House. I don't remember having a problem with ghosts before that. The spirits in Hill House were evil."
His eyes flickered, catching a glimpse of Nellie. She was the most solid ghost he saw, though he suspected most of that was his brain trying to make her be there for real. Whether or not her actual spirit haunted him, he wanted so badly for her to still be with him that he could see her there clear as day, wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing the day she took him to rehab. The last time he saw her, the day he asked her to buy heroin for him to get one last hit before he went clean.
"When we left, part of the house went with us. With me and Nellie and Theo, at least." And his dad, but he didn't want to talk about his dad. The subject of Hugh Crain was almost as difficult for Luke to confront as the subject of Hill House itself.
"I don't see things. Not like visions or whatever," he explained. Or tried to explain. "But I see ghosts. Mostly him," he gestured vaguely, referring to the bowler hat ghost. "My mother gave me the hat, that summer. Before things got really terrible. He came and took it back that night, that was the first time I saw him."
He wasn't sure he wanted to mention Nellie. He didn't want Dan to try to take his sister away from him. Having her ghost with him was better than no Nellie at all.