Warning! Spoilers for The Haunting of Bly Manor below.
The Haunting of Bly Manor's ending answered a lot of questions but kept the circumstances surrounding the death of Miles and Flora's parents a mystery. Their deaths set the events of the series in motion and loom over the residents of Bly Manor. Let's take a closer look at the deaths of Charlotte and Dominic Wingrave.
The follow-up to The Haunting of Hill House tells a story completely separate from its predecessor even though the cast of the first Netflix Haunting series largely returned. The show follows American Dani (Victoria Pedretti) as she travels to England and becomes a governess for two orphaned children, Miles and Flora. As she gets acquainted with the manor, she quickly realizes that something isn't right with both the kids and the house itself.
Ultimately, the cause of Charlotte's and Dominic's deaths doesn't matter. The point of their deaths in The Haunting of Bly Manor was to ensure that their children were in the unfortunate situation of needing a governess, so they served their purpose. But here's everything we do know about the passing of Miles and Flora's parents.
The Cause Of Miles' And Flora's Parents' Death Is A Mystery
Miles and Flora's parents died when they were abroad in India. The Haunting of Hill House sequel only offers hints about what happened, but it's clear that it was a horrific accident that caused their demise. Flora commented that their family had to bury empty coffins instead of their parents' bodies at the funeral. Part of the reason may be because they were so far away when they died, but another reason may be that their bodies were in too poor of shape to be sent back to England.
Charlotte accompanied Dominic to India in an attempt to save their marriage. Charlotte had been having an affair with Dominic's brother Henry (Henry Thomas) and Dominic had finally realized that Flora was, in fact, his brother's biological daughter. Before they left, Charlotte told Henry she was going away with Dominic to make their marriage work.
Ultimately, Charlotte and Dominic had to die so that their children would be in need of governesses like Rebecca and Dani. And because they lost their parents at such a young age, Miles and Flora became very attached to the adults that stepped into their lives. The Haunting of Bly Manor reveals that anyone who dies at Bly remains there as a ghost in their afterlife, so naturally, some of the adults in their lives are later revealed to be ghosts. Miles' and Flora's attachment to those ghosts inadvertently gave them permission to haunt grounds. In turn, Dani's dedication to the parentless children prompted her to make the ultimate sacrifice in the end of The Haunting of Bly Manor. Crucially, none of those important storylines would have been possible without the deaths of Miles and Flora's parents.