Chapter III: Dancing in the Lion's Den
⚠️ Spoiler Notice
This page details the events of Chapter 80, “Chapter III,” of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. It contains major spoilers for everything up to this point, including Alice’s turning, the confrontation with Penny, and the ongoing hunt for Sabine. Read on only if you’ve already reached this chapter or don’t mind knowing what happens.
Summary
Lottie empties a bag of short autumn-coloured dresses, makeup, and heeled boots onto the bed and insists Alice get ready—they are going out to lure Sabine. She reveals that Sabine’s heart is her only mortal part, the one place that must be destroyed. While applying eyeliner, Lottie confesses why she chose Alice that first night: she saw her younger self, a girl bursting with longing to be seen, and simply found her attractive. They walk arm in arm to a packed club, a performance for Sabine’s eyes. Lottie coaches Alice to fill her mind with thoughts of her instead of the kill. In the heaving noise, Alice is dragged back to memories of Catty’s last phone calls, her sister steadily moving south until she calls from Trafalgar Square and then vanishes. On the dance floor, Lottie pulls Alice close and for a moment the world rewinds to the Co‑op party that started it all, but without the horror—just two girls dancing with their whole lives ahead.
Key Events
- Transformation and preparation: Lottie dresses Alice in a green dress, makeup, and boots, styling her to look like bait.
- The lore of the heart: Lottie explains that sunlight weakens, grave dirt sicks, but only the heart stays mortal; Sabine must be killed through it.
- Lottie’s confession: When Alice asks why she was chosen, Lottie says she saw her own hungry, longing self in Alice—and also thought she was hot.
- A double performance: The pair walk to a nightclub, putting on a show of affection for Sabine, with Lottie repeatedly warning Alice to keep her mind off the plan.
- Catty’s trailing voice: Alice flashes back to her sister’s calls from Sheffield, Leicester, Cambridge, and finally London; a moment of relief mixes with guilt.
- The dance that rewrites history: In the middle of the club chaos, Lottie pulls Alice into a pool of silence, and Alice imagines the night they met without blood or death, just two girls dancing with futures intact.
Character Development
- Lottie: The grieving, effervescent side dominates. She is openly manipulative yet genuinely tender. Her confession shows layers—she is still hungry to be seen, but also capable of raw feeling. The shift from tears to a cheerful “I thought you were hot” reveals how she blends pain with charm.
- Alice: She wrestles with her new predator identity and the pressure of being bait. The mirror momentarily reflects Catty, not herself, underlining how much she is playing a role. Her memory of Catty’s calls shows the cost of leaving home and the rope that still pulls her back, even as she learns to quiet her mind with Lottie’s presence.
- Catty (in flashback): The calls chart her descent southward, from Sheffield to London. Her dreamy, frayed voice and the abrupt goodbye at Trafalgar Square deepen the mystery of her fate and the grief Alice carries.
- Sabine (offscreen): She remains an ominous audience, the performance’s intended viewer. Her absence paradoxically drives every action.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Performance and deception: The entire outing is a theatre piece for Sabine. Alice must want Lottie, must not think of killing, must become a convincing lure. Lottie’s compulsion with the bouncer (“You’ve been waiting for us”) extends the theme.
- The mortal heart: Physical and emotional layers intertwine—Sabine’s literal heart is the target, but the chapter also probes the fragility of Alice’s own buried feelings for Lottie and Catty.
- Mirror and identity: Alice sees herself as Catty in the bathroom, and later the dance conjures a version of herself that never lost her sister or her humanity. The “New Alice” is a costume.
- The rope: Catty’s memory is an inescapable rope that hauls Alice back, tying her to the past even as she tries to focus on Lottie. It represents both love and entrapment.
- Alternate reality: The final vision—the Co‑op party without smoke alarms, without Sabine, just dancing—shows the depth of Alice’s wish to undo what happened, and reframes the entire chase as a tragedy of what might have been.
Why This Chapter Matters
“Chapter III” is the calm before the storm. It gives readers the concrete method to kill Sabine (the mortal heart), cementing the goal while raising the stakes of ever getting close enough. Lottie’s confession reframes the original seduction as partly genuine, complicating her character beyond pure villain or victim. The Catty flashback tethers Alice’s supernatural conflict to her human loss, making the mission not just revenge but a way to honour or escape the sister she couldn’t save. Finally, the dance and the imagined reality hammer home the book’s central ache: that love and violence became entangled on one night, and the only way out is through the person who started it all.
Study Questions and Answers
Q1. According to Lottie, what is the only way to kill a vampire as old as Sabine, and why is that significant for Alice’s plan?
A. You must destroy the heart. Sunlight and grave dirt weaken but do not kill; only the heart stays mortal. For Alice, this means she has to get close enough to Sabine to drive a weapon directly into that point, despite Sabine’s mind‑reading abilities and five centuries of experience.
Q2. Why does Lottie say she chose Alice that first night, and how does her answer change Alice’s understanding of their relationship?
A. Lottie says she saw her own younger self in Alice: someone loud with longing, desperate to be seen. She also admits an immediate physical attraction. This confession reveals that what felt purely predatory to Alice was also, for Lottie, a moment of recognition and desire, blending manipulation with genuine warmth and complicating Alice’s resentment.
Q3. At the club, Alice imagines a version of the night they met without Sabine’s interference. What does this fantasy tell us about Alice’s true feelings and the novel’s larger themes?
A. The vision—no fire alarm, no rain, no turning, just two girls dancing—shows that underneath the need for revenge, Alice mourns the life she could have had. It speaks to the novel’s theme of lost potential and the idea that love was distorted, not created, by Sabine’s game. Alice still wishes for the simple connection Lottie offered, even knowing what followed.