“They ain’t been here long ’nough. They just barely human. Maybe not even. They suck up the world, don’t taste it.”

In the flashback that opens the novel, Gilda recalls a conversation with her mother about their plantation’s owners. Her mother is explaining how to make biscuits and how to substitute fat for butter if necessary, which puzzles Gilda, as she knows the other black women can tell the difference immediately. In her response, Gilda’s mother emphasizes that white slaveowners are metaphorically “young,” too immature as a race to feel a strong connection with the world. They can’t tell the difference between butter and fat because they are not in tune enough with the true experience of life.

“The intimacy of her mother’s hands and the warmth of the water lulled the Girl into a trance of sensuality she never forgot. Now the blood washing slowly down her breastbone and soaking into the floor below was like that bath—a cleansing.”

Gilda stabs and kills the bounty hunter who tries to rape her, but rather than being terrified to be soaked in his blood, she feels at peace. The experience gives her a strong memory of being bathed by her mother as a child, making her feel warm and clean. This image reverses the expected implications of a murder scene and foreshadows the healing relationship with blood Gilda will have when she becomes a vampire.

“Bird gazed into the African eyes which struggled to see a white world through words on a page. Bird wondered what creatures, as invisible as she and the Girl were, did with their pasts.”

As Bird teaches young Gilda to read, she feels a connection with her over the fact that they are both outside the dominant white culture. When she refers to them both as “invisible creatures,” she means that neither of them can see themselves depicted in the words they read.