How Long Before Bly Manor’s Wedding Did [SPOILER]?

Warning! Major spoilers for The Haunting of Bly Manor below.

The Haunting of Bly Manor‘s wedding acted as a reunion for nearly every character, except for one important person — Dani. She succumbed to her fate as the lady in the lake before Flora’s wedding took place, but how long before the wedding did Dani actually die?

The lady in the lake, a ghost formerly known as Viola, tormented both the living and dead residents of Bly Manor for centuries. In the show’s ending, the lady in the lake nearly took Flora down to her watery grave, but she was stopped by Dani. By speaking the words, “it’s you, it’s me, it’s us,” Dani invited Viola into her body. This act may have saved Flora and freed every ghost tethered to Bly Manor, but it also came at a cost. Dani knew that one day, the lady in the lake would attempt to take over her body — it was only a matter of time.

Dani was able to live a peaceful life with her partner, Jamie, for a while after the events of the Hill House follow-up. However, once she felt Viola coming for her, she returned to Bly Manor to willingly drown herself in the lake and take her place as the new lady in the lake. This event took place about seven years before Flora’s wedding, further highlighting the tragic love story between Dani and Jamie, who now must go on without the love of her life.

The Haunting of Bly Manor opens with Flora’s wedding in 2007. Once the older Jamie begins to tell her ghost story, the audience is taken back in time to 1987. The final episode of Bly Manor explores Jamie and Dani’s final years together after they escape the manor and move to the United States together. They relocate to Vermont and eventually enter into an official civil union with one another. Civil unions for same-sex couples became legal in the state of Vermont in the year 2000. The audience is left to assume that Jamie filed this paperwork as soon as it became legal. Not too soon after, Viola came for Dani — that means she died in the year 2000.

Since Flora got married in 2007, that means that Dani died seven years before the wedding took place. Once Jamie wraps up her story at the wedding, the audience learns that she constantly stares at pools of water, hoping to catch Dani’s reflection staring back at her. She also always sleeps in a chair facing the door, in case Dani were to one day return. Since Dani died in the year 2000, that means that Jamie has been living that way for seven years. It’s a small detail that shows both the everlasting and heartbreaking element of their relationship in The Haunting of Bly Manor.