Fair Warning
Today we are explaining the ending of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, by V. E. Schwab, and what happens to Alice, Lottie, and Sabine.
Fair warning: this one is full of spoilers, and it covers death and grief. If you have not finished the book, pause here and come back later.
Alice And Lottie
Let’s start with the setup. Alice is a Scottish student at Harvard, still grieving her sister Catty, who died at seventeen. At a party, she meets Lottie, and they spend the night together.
The next day, Alice wakes up changed. The sunlight hurts, she has no heartbeat, and she is hungry. She has become a vampire.
The Women Before
The book reveals how this happened through the other storylines. In sixteenth century Spain, a young woman named María meets a mysterious widow named Sabine, and leaves her husband to follow her. When she is turned, María takes the name Sabine for herself.
Centuries later, in London in eighteen twenty seven, a girl named Charlotte is turned by Sabine, and the two are together for a hundred years. Charlotte eventually runs, and becomes the Lottie that Alice meets.
The Lie
Lottie’s story is that Sabine hunts every person Lottie loves. She tells Alice that the only way out is to kill Sabine, and that if she does, Alice will get her life back.
So the two of them plan. They go to a club, hoping to lure Sabine, and Alice is the bait. But at the key moment, Lottie lets go of her hand and slips away, and leaves Alice alone to be caught.
The Penthouse
Sabine takes Alice to a stolen penthouse, and compels her to sit. She tells Alice that compulsion is only a nudge, and that Alice wanted to come.
Sabine also says that Lottie does not love her, that she feels only guilt, and that Alice is just another broken toy. She mentions Penny, one of Lottie’s earlier lovers who did not survive.
Killing Sabine
Alice plays along, and bides her time. Then, in the shower, she remembers everything. She remembers the night Sabine killed her, and she remembers Catty’s funeral in the rain.
When Sabine joins her, Alice drives a shard of slate into her heart. Sabine, who is five hundred years old, crumbles into ash.
Lottie’s Lie
Lottie arrives soon after. Alice tells her the truth: she killed Sabine, and nothing changed. She is still dead.
Lottie admits that she knew. She says that she did not lie exactly, because she said Alice would get her life back, and that now she will. This is not my life, says Alice. It is a life, says Lottie.
The Poison
Alice has already made her choice. She has laced a glass of blood with soil from Catty’s grave, which she kept in her pendant, because grave dirt sickens vampires. Lottie drinks it.
As Lottie chokes, Alice takes a silver hairbrush from her bag, and drives the handle into her heart. Lottie crumbles into ash, too. Alice whispers, bury my bones.
The Last Scene
Alice walks out into Boston. She plays a voice note from Catty, and her father calls to check on her. She lies, and says she is walking back from the library, and he stays on the line until she reaches campus.
When she hangs up, she keeps walking. She has no heartbeat, but she tells herself that she will be okay. The last word is that she is hungry.
What It Means
The ending is about taking back control. Alice was made by someone else, and lied to by someone else. By killing both, she chooses her own path, even if it is not the one she wanted.
It also says that grief does not end. Catty’s voice, the grave soil, and her father’s call anchor Alice to who she was, even as she becomes something else.
My Verdict on the Ending
I think it is a bleak, powerful ending that fits the book. It does not give Alice her old life back, and it does not pretend that revenge fixes everything.
If you want to talk about it, leave a comment: do you think Alice was right to kill Lottie? Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.
