Silver Bracelet
As Juliette breathlessly follows Calliope out of English class, her shoes scuffs across a bracelet on the hallway floor. When she reaches down to pick it up, it burns her flesh because it is silver, the dreaded precious metal nemesis of vampires. Later, it will be revealed that Calliope dropped the bracelet as a test. The silver bracelet is thus invested with the symbolic status of both bait and proof.
Lipstick
Although the precise meaning is somewhat ambiguous, lipstick is one of the few symbols in the book that is singled as symbol. Elinor has told her younger sister that lipstick is “like armor” in that it provides a “shield against the world.” As Elinor applies the appropriate armor to Juliette, the little sister begins to feel a rare surge of boldness toward the world.
Parties
Juliette makes no bones about it: they represent everything she hates. They are loud and crowded and filled with foods she can’t digest and alcohol she can’t consume. Parties, which to most of the world represent social interaction and human connection become a symbol of the vampire’s lack of humanity.
Ghouls
Calliope is a member of a family of fearless vampire hunters. But they do not limit themselves merely to vampires. They sometimes go to cemeteries specifically to target ghouls which is the technically correct name for the bastardization of the original concept of zombies in the modern age. Ghouls are the living dead and Calliope is especially unfond of them because they are the epitome of the insatiable and relentless hollow emptiness that characterizes the non-living. Ghouls are the symbol of death and their very existence makes them an abomination.
The Closet
The closet is where Calliope and Juliette take on the challenge posed to them as part of a game of Truth or Dare. The dare is to spend sixty seconds alone behind the closed door of the closet. But that very dare also introduces the Truth part of the game for it is inside that private enclave that both girls learn the truth about the other: one is a hunter and the other is the hunted.
