The Gilda Stories

One of the few things that can kill vampires in this novel, water represents surrender. The homesoil the vampires keep sewn in their clothing can keep them safe from water if they need to cross it, but if they enter the water without that protection, it can overtake them. The elder Gilda dreams of taking the true death in the ocean, but not because she is avoidant—as she tries to explain to Bird, it’s because of the “final embrace of freedom” it will offer (32). Water symbolizes oneness, and she is “full of the need to match [her heart’s] rhythm with that of an ocean” (33). Similarly, when younger Gilda kills the bounty hunter and is soaked with his blood, water imagery depicts this as an empowering and uniting experience rather than a terrifying one. As his blood washes over her, she has a powerful memory of being given a bath by her mother—“the intimacy of her mother’s hands and the warmth of the water lulled the Girl into a trance of sensuality she never forgot” (12)—and she is so at peace she briefly feels the bounty hunter is like a lover.