Luke led the way out of the apartment. He glanced back, not because he worried Theo wouldn't follow, but because he wanted to know how close she was. Nellie had been gone for two years, with him only in spirit. Before that, he hadn't seen her for three months, not since the day she dropped him at rehab. The program had discouraged visitors, and Nellie had been living her own life while Luke was trying to get his in order.
He sighed, and scratched at the back of his neck the way he did when he felt Nellie near to him. She'd died with a noose around her neck, and he felt the rope around his neck so often that it was just a fact of life for him.
They chatted about mundane things, and the weirdness of being in Vallo. And then Luke came up short, freezing midstep, with Hill House looming like a dark hulking shadow just ahead of them. Like they'd wandered too close without even seeing it until suddenly it was there larger than life.
"No." Luke said, with the appearance of talking to someone, because he was hearing Nellie tell him to 'go'.