"Yes. I died, and then I woke up on the train as it pulled into the station." He reaches up to touch a small scar, just under his left eye. That isn't the wound that killed him, but it's the only one that's visible at the moment. "No, I'm not a ghost. I seem to be alive again."

Thomas takes some heart in the fact that Eric hasn't fled the room in horror. He fidgets with his mug. "I went to tell Lucille that it's over. That we could just leave the house, leave the damn thing to rot. That we could go somewhere and have new lives. That it didn't have to be this way. She flew into a rage when she realized I was in love with Edith. She stabbed me several times, once here," he gestures under his eye, "then in the chest. I believe it was a stiletto knife. Then she went after Edith."

He understands the part that he says next may be the strangest of the entire story, but he tells it anyway. "I don't really understand how the next part happened... I don't remember dying, but I remember hearing Edith's voice. She needed help, so I went to her. I suppose I was a ghost then, for a moment. I helped her escape Lucille. Then I don't remember anything until the train."

It is, honestly, still a sanitized version of the story. But it's as much as Thomas can bring himself to tell.