"The Bent-Neck Lady" Trivia Quiz

Answer: A locket

As a child, Nell was troubled by psychic happenings more than her siblings. On her very first night in Hill House, she awakened, sitting up to see the shadow of a woman with a bent neck sitting at the end of her bed. The shadow screamed loud enough to hurt her ears though no one else heard it. Olivia and Hugh told Nell that if the lady came back, she could run and get them and they would scare the lady away. The next night, Nell slept on a sofa instead and this time, Olivia stayed with her until she slept, even giving her her locket (with Luke and Nell's picture inside), a locket she said would give Nell when she was older.

When Nell was fast asleep, Olivia snuck away to head to bed herself, and that's when Nell woke up again, this time unable to move, while the bent-neck lady hovered above her.

Answer: Her sleep technician

In the years before her death, Nell saw a sleep technician, Arthur, regarding the nightmares and sleep paralysis. He assured her that seeing things in sleep paralysis was often normal as though dreams spilled over into waking life. She was scheduled for a sleep test then; it would help remove her panic.

She was, after all, still having trouble with these dreams. She and Arthur would end up going on several dates, eventually developing a fulfilling relationship on the back of trying to help her issues. On New Year's Eve, Arthur proposed to her.

She said yes. They married soon after.

Answer: Of an unexpected brain aneurysm

At the wedding, Nell told Steven that they would be moving out west to follow Arthur's work. She explained that Luke might also head out to join them. During the wedding, she saw the image of her mother watching on next to Hugh. She embraced Steven, turning away from the ghostly figure. None of the life changes cured her sleep paralysis though. One night, eight months after the wedding and after moving to Los Angeles, Arthur tried to help her control her panic while she suffered an episode. He got up to turn on the light, but as he rose he suffered from a fatal brain aneurysm. Nell could do nothing but watch as the bent-neck lady stared from the window.

When Nell finally regained control, she could do nothing but crawl to Arthur's body.

He was dead and she was back.

Answer: Nell

After Arthur's death, Nell started seeing a therapist about her grief and her recurring night terrors, explaining that the bent-neck lady barely appeared to her after Arthur helped her...and then she killed him. Nell blamed Hill House. She didn't expect the doctor to believe her. When she was a young girl, Nell, playing in Hill House, found a tea set amongst the toys. Mrs. Dudley would tell Nell that the tea set belonged to Jaclyn, one of the young girls who lived at the house with the Hills before the Crains owned it. Olivia found Nell in the kitchen, later, cleaning the tea set.

But Olivia wasn't angry about that; she was angry about Nell writing her name on the walls in another room. Nell claimed not to be responsible, but she was told to clean it anyways.

Theo would soon place her hand on the writing to determine that it certainly was not Nell who wrote it, and peeling back the wallpaper they would find more writing saying "COME HOME NELL".

Answer: True

Nell met with Luke, picking him up on a rainy night in Los Angeles to drop him off at the half-way house for the first time. Luke tricked her though, trying to get her to buy him drugs for his last bit of heroin before rehab. She told him that she'd do it, but only because she always believed in him.

He cooked it then and there, in the car, and while he did, out in the rain, Nell saw the apparition of the bent-neck lady. She flushed her pills down the toilet after that. A month later, Nell told her therapist that this happened.

He asked if she'd heard from him since, but she didn't. But she did feel sick the first few days he was at the half-way house. It was likely the twin thing.

Answer: His pillow

Nell also told Theo about the trip with Luke, explaining why she did what she did. Nell had Theo come to her home for another reason though-- to place her hand on Arthur's pillow. Theo didn't sense anything there. Nell asked Theo to do the same where Arthur fell on the floor but she didn't want to be used that way.

Theo recommended that Nell move back east, but it was obviously more complicated than that. They argued over money and siblings before Theo left, the two of them leaving their fight unresolved.

Answer: Hill House

At the time Nell was coping with her visions, Steven was on a book tour for his writings on Alcatraz. Interestingly, most of the questions at his next signing were about his family and Hill House. Nell was the only one to ask a relevant question-- she asked him why he charged people to discuss paranormal things he never even believed in. Steven took her aside after, asking if Nell was off her meds and treated her like she was just on another phase. Nell told her therapist about the confrontation and claimed it felt good.

She lied about taking her meds, again. He didn't believe her. What he suggested though, was that she wasn't solving her problem since she was confronting her family but not her past-- the house. He claimed that it was barely even a house; no one has lived there in twenty-six years.

It's just a building.

Answer: A motel

Nell flew to Massachusetts after the suggestion was made to confront the house where her troubles started. Arriving, she checked into the same motel as that fateful night. She remembered when her family had to flee Hill House; their father dropped the siblings off at the motel and put Steven in charge before returning to Hill House to help their mother.

The siblings discussed what they saw in his absence; Luke and Nell said that they were in the Red Room, which was locked, having a tea party with Abigail and Olivia. Nell corrected her brother-- that wasn't their mother. Hugh wouldn't return until morning, covered in paint.

He found their mother and she would be alright, he claimed, as the police arrived. Sitting in the motel room, Nell counted to seven, just like Luke used to tell her to do when she was scared. That night she fell asleep, waking up to her typical sleep paralysis, but this time she wasn't visited by the bent-neck lady, but the image of Luke, overdosed, hanging from the ceiling.

Answer: Her father

Nell awakened the next afternoon and phoned the family while they were all occupied. She left messages with each of her siblings, worrying about Luke and asking them all to call back. Heading out to grab water from the machine, she found herself trapped in a dead end corridor.

She headed back the way she came only to be surprised with the hanged apparition of the bent-neck lady. She returned to the room to get a message from Steven; all seemed to be fine with the siblings. After hearing the message, she seemed to fall into a reverie, losing track of time until 1 in the morning.

But she still had to proceed. There would be no problem with visiting Hill House at night, she reasoned. As her therapist said, it was just a carcass in the woods. So Nell drove out to the property and undid the chains on the gate to Hill House. Alone, she drove up through the fog in the middle of the night.

She made one last call before heading inside, this time to her father. She asked him: 'Do you remember the bent-neck lady?' She's back, she said.

As she looked at the house, she saw the lights inside turn on.

Answer: Nell

As Nell entered the house she found it fully furnished and fully-lit. The apparitions of her family, all of an age when they would have been living there, appeared before her, waiting to welcome her. What she saw was not reality. Walking into an adjacent room, she found her mother finishing the message on the wall-- 'WEL-COME HOME NELL'. They always knew she never wrote on the wall. Olivia told her to get dressed for bed; there was something for her in the middle drawer of her dresser. There, Nell found a nightgown. Olivia informed her that it was time to go downstairs; they couldn't be late for the reception.
When Nell descended the stairs she found her family, now adults, waiting for her. And with them, Arthur, waiting to take her hand. Nell danced with her husband, or so she believed, waltzing through the house before returning to the foyer for a final kiss. As their spirits faded away, she opened her eyes to see a young girl. Olivia, young Luke, and Abigail ascended the spiral staircase before her, prepared for a tea party in the Red Room, and at the top, Olivia placed the locket in her hands. It would be hers.
In reality, the locket she placed around her neck was the rope of a noose. Olivia told her it would be okay, but then she pushed her off.
Nell continued to fall through the moments of her life, appearing repeatedly throughout her own past, usually in moments where she experienced sleep paralysis, always as a dark, ghostly figure with a bent neck.