Promise and Betrayal in Wartime London: Chapter VI Analysis
Spoiler Notice: This page reveals major plot details from Chapter 65 of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. Read at your own risk if you have not yet reached this chapter.
Summary
Charlotte walks alone through the remnants of a London flower market in 1943, collecting damaged blooms amid the fear and sirens of wartime. She reflects on how much she despises the city and her deteriorating relationship with Sabine, who insists they remain in London despite the danger. Sabine has grown cold and detached, complaining that rationing makes blood taste bland, and Charlotte feels worn down by the constant pretense.
Returning to their flat, Charlotte discovers a horrific scene: blood smeared on the doorknob, the stairs, and the walls, leading to the bedroom. There she finds Sabine drenched in gore, eyes black, pupils wide, speaking dreamily about victims who came apart like Christmas paper. Suppressing her horror, Charlotte runs a bath, cleans Sabine, and puts her to bed.
Once Sabine is deeply asleep, Charlotte retrieves a blade from the desk and kneels over her lover, intending to drive it into her chest. But the weapon stops, held an inch above Sabine’s heart by an invisible force. Charlotte realizes the restraint comes from a decades-old promise she made: “Promise that you will never hurt me.” The oath, spoken nearly fifty years earlier, now physically binds her limbs. A crimson tear drips from Charlotte’s eye onto Sabine’s face, waking her. Sabine sees the frozen blade and reacts not with shock but amusement, calling Charlotte silly and bidding her back to bed. Charlotte drops the knife, flees the flat, and escapes into the night—resolved not to look back, like Orpheus abandoning Eurydice.
Key Events
- Charlotte searches a ruined wartime market and finds a nearly perfect rose and a trampled peony.
- She mentally contrasts the current war with earlier periods, noting that “everything is worse this time.”
- Charlotte admits she hates London and has tried to convince Sabine to flee, but Sabine refuses; Charlotte suspects this is a test of her loyalty.
- She wonders about Antonia and whether the “Way Down” in Southwark still exists.
- An air-raid siren sounds; Charlotte ignores it and walks home, imagining what would happen if a bomb fell on her.
- She discovers blood on the doorknob, stairs, and walls of their flat.
- Sabine stands in the bedroom covered in blood, speaking in a detached, dreamlike voice about killing multiple people.
- Charlotte bathes Sabine, washes her hair, scrubs gore from her nails, and puts her to bed.
- Sabine murmurs that she cannot hear Charlotte’s thoughts and asks if she is keeping secrets.
- Charlotte soothes Sabine to sleep by reciting their shared poem.
- Charlotte retrieves a blade, kneels over Sabine, and tries to drive it into her heart.
- A 50-year-old oath physically prevents the blow; Charlotte realizes the promise binds her.
- A bloody tear wakes Sabine, who reacts with amusement and invites Charlotte back to bed.
- Charlotte drops the knife, flees the flat, and runs into the street without looking back.
Character Development
Charlotte: This chapter reveals the full extent of Charlotte’s desperation and inner torment. She has shifted from a devoted lover enduring Sabine’s increasing darkness to a woman willing to commit murder to free herself. Her realization that the decades-old promise exerts literal, physical control over her body is a devastating moment of self-awareness—she is bound by her own word in ways she never imagined. Yet even after the attempted assassination fails, Charlotte chooses flight over submission, demonstrating a newly hardened resolve. Her refusal to look back in the Orpheus comparison underscores her determination to escape, even if it costs her everything.
Sabine: Sabine’s transformation into a “languid monster” is on full display. She slaughters indiscriminately and describes the carnage with childlike detachment, a far cry from the woman who once seduced Charlotte on the stairs and taught her to dance. Her black eyes, pleasure in gore, and inability to perceive Charlotte’s thoughts suggest she is losing her grip on reality or sinking deeper into something inhuman. Her amused reaction to the attempted murder—rather than rage or hurt—reveals how thoroughly the old Sabine has been subsumed. She treats the act as a game, calling Charlotte “silly,” which only heightens the horror.
Themes, Symbols, and Motifs
The Literal Weight of Promises: The chapter’s central supernatural device—an oath that physically restrains—transforms a romantic pledge into a prison. Sabine’s choice to extract this specific promise fifty years earlier takes on chilling foresight. The promise functions as invisible rope, illustrating how words spoken in love can become chains.
War and Desensitization: The 1943 London setting amplifies the chapter’s emotional texture. Constant sirens, disappearances, and death create a backdrop where Sabine’s massacre is almost absorbed by the larger chaos. Sabine’s complaint about bland blood ties her monstrosity directly to wartime rationing, making the external conflict echo the internal one.
Monstrosity and Lost Self: Charlotte grapples with the painful recognition that the Sabine she loved has been replaced by something else. The chapter asks whether the “real” Sabine is still present beneath the black-eyed killer, or whether Charlotte has been loving a memory. Sabine’s deep, unresponsive sleep is compared to burial, reinforcing death imagery.
The Orpheus and Eurydice Reversal: The chapter’s final line recasts the myth with Charlotte as Orpheus—the one who must escape without looking back—and Sabine as a Eurydice trapped not in the underworld but in her own monstrous state. This inversion suggests Charlotte is saving herself rather than attempting a failed rescue.
The Shared Poem: “Bury my bones in the midnight soil / Plant them shallow and water them deep / And in my place will grow a feral rose…” functions as a lullaby and a talisman. Charlotte uses it to lull Sabine to sleep, but the words also foreshadow themes of death, rebirth, and transformation that linger over their relationship.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 65 is the structural hinge on which Charlotte and Sabine’s relationship breaks. After years of endurance and complicity, Charlotte finally acts—and discovers that she cannot harm Sabine even if she wants to. The promise restraint is a brilliant narrative mechanism: it externalizes Charlotte’s internal conflict and raises the stakes dramatically. Now Charlotte knows she is bound, physically and magically, and Sabine knows Charlotte tried to kill her. The power dynamic has shifted in a way neither can ignore. Charlotte’s successful escape—from the flat and, symbolically, from Sabine’s orbit—propels the narrative into new territory. This chapter also deepens the lore of how promises function in this world, hinting at binding rules that transcend simple verbal agreement.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does the blade stop before touching Sabine’s chest?
Charlotte made a promise fifty years earlier: “Promise that you will never hurt me.” This oath, spoken in a moment of intimacy and trust, manifests as a literal physical restraint. Charlotte discovers that her own words have become an invisible force, locking her muscles and preventing the downward thrust. The scene suggests that in the world of the novel, certain promises carry supernatural weight and cannot be broken, regardless of changed circumstances or intent.
2. How does the wartime setting reinforce the chapter’s emotional and psychological stakes?
The 1943 London backdrop amplifies the sense of entrapment and disintegration. Sirens, disappearances, and constant fear mirror the decay inside Charlotte and Sabine’s relationship. Sabine exploits the chaos—people vanish so often that her kills go unnoticed—while Charlotte feels increasingly trapped between the external war and the internal one. The setting also intensifies Charlotte’s isolation; even when she runs into the street at the chapter’s end, the night air and ghostly sirens offer no real safety, only a different kind of uncertainty.
3. What is the significance of the Orpheus and Eurydice comparison at the chapter’s conclusion?
By casting Charlotte as Orpheus and Sabine as Eurydice, the chapter reframes their relationship as one of attempted rescue and necessary abandonment. In the myth, Orpheus loses Eurydice forever when he looks back; here, Charlotte refuses to look back at all. This reversal implies that Sabine is already lost—buried in her own darkness—and that Charlotte’s survival depends on severing the connection entirely. The myth also introduces the idea of an underworld, which echoes Sabine’s earlier description of feeling buried beneath dirt instead of blankets.