Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Charlotte loves Rome before sunrise. Charlotte is still paranoid that Sabine is following her, even though she hasn’t seen a hint of Sabine in the 10 years they’ve been apart. Charlotte stands in a fountain at sunrise and hears a human woman join her. The woman is Giada, who is strong and carries rocks in her purse for defense. Charlotte finds Giada attractive, and they have dinner the next night. Giada takes Charlotte on a tour of her favorite restaurants. Charlotte pretends to eat, and Giada reveals she’s a model for artists. She demonstrates how perfectly still she can be, and Charlotte asks to draw her.

Charlotte takes Giada to her apartment, and Giada strips as Charlotte begins to draw her. Giada asks Charlotte for a story, and Charlotte tells her the story of her life, of her journey with Sabine and how Sabine killed her and took her soul. Charlotte cries a bloody tear, and Giada is shocked but not repulsed. Giada asks Charlotte what she eats, and Charlotte confesses that it’s blood. Giada offers her blood to Charlotte, and though Charlotte hesitates, she gently bites Giada. She stops before Giada is hurt, and Giada says she feels good. Giada asks to go to bed, and she and Charlotte are intimate.

Charlotte easily falls in love with Giada. They go out for gelato, and when Charlotte kisses Giada’s neck, an old man makes an anti-gay remark. Giada wants to confront him, but Charlotte tells her to go home. Charlotte later returns to Giada after drinking and killing the man. Giada wants to become like Charlotte, but Charlotte refuses to turn her. She loves Giada how she is and doesn’t want her to become a monster like Sabine.

Charlotte cooks Giada’s favorite pasta for her. While she’s in love with Giada and confides in her, she keeps her hunger hidden. Giada lets Charlotte feed from her, and when Giada asks if she’s full, Charlotte says yes, even though her appetite is never sated. Charlotte hears Giada laughing in the stairwell, but when Giada appears in the doorway, she’s with Sabine. Charlotte is horrified and tells Giada to come to her, to get across the threshold of the apartment that Charlotte has claimed, but Sabine grabs Giada’s hair. She tells Giada that it’s a shame Charlotte hasn’t turned her and then tells Charlotte to come out. Charlotte refuses, so Sabine breaks Giada’s neck. Charlotte is horrified but smells the pasta burning, so she runs to prevent a fire. When she comes back to the doorway, Sabine is gone, but Giada’s corpse is still there. Heartbroken, Charlotte leaves Giada and the apartment behind.

Charlotte travels for months in fear of Sabine. She feels hunted and fearful of any companionship, lest Sabine hurt them. In 1961, Charlotte takes a boat to Boston, posing as a young widow. She finds Ezra at the White Thorn Club. Antonia has warned Ezra that Charlotte would come without saying why, so Charlotte tells him all about her history with Sabine. Ezra asks her why she didn’t turn Giada, and Charlotte explains that she loved her as she was, and it wouldn’t have saved her from Sabine. Ezra promises to keep an eye out for Sabine and to warn Charlotte if she comes to Boston. He tells Charlotte to call him if she’s ever worried.

Charlotte stays in Boston for years, terrified that Sabine will find her. She keeps calling Ezra to see if he’s seen Sabine, but Ezra’s heard nothing. Charlotte begins to think that she’s free.

Charlotte buys a yellow VW Beetle, tired of Boston. She drives west, the solitude finally gets to her. She’s not built for solitude like Sabine, so she starts going home with women, having brief flings on her journey. She thinks it’s safe until the women begin to go missing. Charlotte feels certain it’s Sabine, but Ezra still hasn’t heard anything. Charlotte goes to the bridge to see the memorial to Luce, her lover who supposedly drowned. She sees a single red rose tied to the post and recognizes it as a message from Sabine.

Charlotte falls in love with a woman named Penny, who doesn’t disappear even as their relationship stretches on. After four months, Charlotte moves in with Penny. On their four-month anniversary, Charlotte returns to their apartment and finds Penny slumped in bed, covered in blood. Charlotte thinks she’s dead before Penny wakes up, and Charlotte realizes that Sabine has turned her. Sabine knows Charlotte’s never turns any of her lovers because she doesn’t want to be their Sabine, to have them watch as her humanity sloughs away, so Sabine has turned Penny to hurt Charlotte. Charlotte tells Penny it will be okay, but when Penny turns around, Charlotte stabs her in the back with a silver hairbrush, killing her.

Charlotte stays on the roof until dawn, then she calls Ezra. Ezra tells her that she needs to decide if the lives of the women Charlotte romances matter more than her need to be loved. She needs to be alone or learn to live with the reality that Sabine will hurt or kill these women. He says she doesn’t have to be lonely; like vampires, loneliness must be invited in.

Charlotte takes Ezra’s advice. She only has brief romantic encounters, then she writes the name of each woman and notable details about them in the blank pages of Penny’s copy of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. For the first few years, she checks in on the women to make sure they’re okay, but without another Sabine sighting, she eventually stops. She truly thought Alice would be safe.

When Lottie finishes her story, Alice feels a blend of rage and grief that she has died and her life as she knew it is over because Sabine was jealous and vengeful. Alice has a panic attack, and Ezra gives her a glass of blood. After Alice drinks it, she falls unconscious.

Alice dreams of another memory from home. She was making Catty’s birthday cake with her toddler half-brother Finn when she heard a crash in the living room. Catty had found one of their mother’s photos in a box instead of on the mantle, so she took a bat and smashed their father and Eloise’s wedding portrait. Finn stepped in the glass and cut his heel, which bled badly. Eloise told Catty to “grow up or get out” (488). The next day, Catty turned 17, and the day after that, she was gone with no note and no phone. For a week, the family sat in stressed agony until Catty finally called Alice and told her that she was in York, exploring the opportunities of the world. Alice begged Catty to come back, but she refused.

Alice wakes at dusk. She takes out the pendant with her mother’s grave dirt inside it and opens it, but when the dirt touches her, she feels the intense sickness again. Alice finds Lottie’s The Secret History and reads the entry about her, about how she “tastes like grief” (492). Lottie returns and apologizes for drugging Alice, explaining that new vampires have heightened emotions that they often struggle to control. She shows Alice how to project one emotion and hide the others from Lottie. Alice practices by projecting distrust. Alice asks Lottie why she hasn’t killed her like she killed Penny, and Lottie says she’s tired of running and living in fear. She can’t kill Sabine herself, but Alice can. Lottie says that if Alice kills Sabine, Alice will become human again. Alice agrees, wanting both her humanity back and revenge on Sabine.

Lottie helps Alice get ready to go out to the club. Since Lottie is no longer playing by Sabine’s rules, she knows Sabine will seek them out. She tells Alice to guard her thoughts about killing Sabine; she can project fear, which Sabine will expect, or thoughts about Lottie. Once they leave the Taj, Lottie tells Alice she must pretend to be enamored with her. They’re affectionate, and Alice sees glimpses of the Lottie she first met, but she struggles to avoid thinking about Sabine.

Alice’s thoughts return to Catty, as they often do. After Catty left, she frequently called Alice from new places, but she still refused to come home. She called Alice from London and sounded hazy and far away.

Alice and Lottie reach the club, and Lottie convinces the bouncer to let them in. They dance together, and Alice imagines a life with Lottie in which neither are vampires, just girls with full lives ahead of them.

Lottie tells Alice they should separate. Lottie goes to get a drink and suggests Alice do the same. Alice panics without Lottie and goes toward the bathroom. She runs into a girl who tells Alice that her eyes look like the stars. The girl wants Alice, so Alice kisses her, bites her neck, and drinks her blood, but she stops before she kills the girl. Alice hears a voice tell her that Lottie didn’t teach her to finish what she started, and Alice sees Sabine. Sabine snaps the girl’s neck, and Alice is stunned and terrified. Sabine demands Alice come with her, and Alice feels compelled to follow her before blacking out.

Alice returns to her body in an elevator. Sabine invites her into the apartment, and she asks Alice why she’s there. Alice says that Sabine commanded her, but Sabine says she merely nudged her; some part of Alice wanted to go. Alice doesn’t know what Sabine wants with her, so she pours herself and Sabine a drink from the carafe of blood on the counter. While Sabine isn’t looking, Alice pours her mother’s grave dirt into Sabine’s glass. She gives Sabine the glass, but Sabine refuses to drink. She tells Alice that they’ll work together to catch Lottie, and Alice realizes Sabine is wearing chain mail. Alice tells Sabine that she’ll help her catch Lottie and Sabine caresses Alice’s face. Alice asks Sabine if she can shower, hinting that she plans to sleep with Sabine.

Alice steps into the shower and has another memory. Catty left her an ominous voice note about life and death just being a game. The next day, Alice got the call that Catty had stepped in front of a car in Glasgow. The driver stayed with her until the ambulance arrived, but she died. Alice realized that Catty had never made it further than Glasgow—she’d lied to Alice about all the places she’d visited. Alice didn’t feel Catty die like she thought she would have.

It rained when they buried Catty, and Alice stood in the rain and pretended to feel Catty’s fingers around hers.

Sabine joins Alice in the shower. The steam hides the broken sink and a piece of shale missing. When Sabine touches Alice, Alice remembers waking up to Sabine pushing her down in bed, biting her, stopping her heart. Alice turns and stabs Sabine in the chest with the jagged piece of the sink. Sabine looks bemused before she turns to dust. Alice leaves the shower and crumples on the couch.

Alice grew older than Catty ever did, and because of her academic prowess, she had her pick of colleges. She chose Harvard because she wanted to explore the world for Catty.

Alice waits in the penthouse until Lottie arrives to confront her about her lie that killing Sabine would make Alice human again. Lottie tells Alice that she can still have a life, it’ll just look different than she thought. Alice is upset, so she doesn’t stop Lottie when she picks up the glass of poisoned blood. Lottie drinks and becomes immediately ill. Lottie begs for help, but Alice does nothing. Her anger is gone and she feels hollow. She grabs a silver hairbrush from Lottie’s bag and plunges it into Lottie’s chest. Lottie tries to fight Alice off but crumbles to dust.

Alice begins walking back to Harvard, listening to Catty’s voice note again. Her father calls and they talk about school, about Finn, about things in Hoxburn. Her father tells Alice that she’ll succeed, even if school is hard. They both say “I love you” before Alice hangs up. Alice knows that she’ll be okay, and she walks until her footsteps feel like a heartbeat. She’s alive, and she’s hungry.