Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Throughout the text, the motif of blood points to The Consequences of Immortality, Transformation, and Rebirth. In vampire fiction, blood is an essential part of the narrative. In Schwab’s novel, blood first appears during María’s transformation. When the widow Sabine bites her, María thinks she’s going to die until Sabine offers María her blood in return. María finds herself unable to stop drinking from Sabine, “until she can taste it in the widow’s blood, the fear she felt moments before. María doesn’t stop. She drinks, until the widow weakens, sags” (110). María’s instant desire to taste the fear in Sabine’s blood is indicative of María’s rising bloodlust and the erosion of her human compassion, a notable consequence of her transformation into a vampire.

Blood also plays a role in Alice’s rebirth as a vampire. Though she blacks out when she kills Colin, she immediately knows something is wrong afterward when she sees herself cry blood in the mirror, which she describes as “two red lines running down her cheeks, like something out of a horror film” (124). Blood marks Alice’s visual transformation and the start of the deterioration of her humanity, as she can no longer cry normally and express her human emotions as she once did.