Another excerpt. I have been working a lot lately with Grace’s interiority. A fun part of this kind of development is finding the little spots where I can plant her resentment and growing inability to tolerate her own inaction. Duly fun is how she rationalizes it away.

This excerpt directly follows Visit 7, where she throws the jar and it breaks. She doesn’t want to go, but when she arrives she realizes a problem that she hadn’t considered.

Barn #8 Excerpt

The next day came too quickly. It wasn’t until the afternoon had passed and she was sitting at the table for dinner that it occurred to her that she did not wish to see him.

She hadn’t fully agreed to come. That wasn’t nothing. After how he’d spoken to her the previous evening, the coldness in his tone, how small he’d made her feel, returning to that barn nearly amounted to being the bigger person.

Maybe not that far. She had thrown a jar at him. It’d taken her the entire afternoon to make another batch. The scrapes on her shins pained her, the sting radiated through both her legs. She’d had to let them happen that morning in the stable, on purpose, to convince Emma to give her the recipe. And endure a lecture about wearing the right clothing for the job. No matter. It had been worth it.

Whether or not he deserved this amount of effort was the question. The look on his face after it had shattered, or rather, the lack of a look, his almost forced calm about it, had unsettled something inside her she decided she’d rather not name.
She had agreed to new ointment. It had been maybe four days since he’d had any. And looking at the state of his neck convinced her that it was time. When had that happened? Needing convincing. The glass had punctured the blisters on his neck somehow. He didn’t complain much in the moment, but he had to have been thinking it. The glass had scattered everywhere. She shuddered at the thought of sleeping amongst hidden shards.

Nevertheless, she empties the old glass from the basket into the waste and reloads it carefully. Owen and Thomas were occupied at the store. She couldn’t really bring herself to face him so soon.

Adrian had grown tiresome the last few days. His patience was thin and he seemed to grow considerably more irritable depending on absolutely nothing, or so it seemed. Lately she just couldn’t seem to win with him. Surely the barn was challenging but he only knew one side of it. He was not the one managing th excuses, the narrative of the whole thing. Why did she need all that ointment? Why hadn’t she been eating her meat lately? Where did all the cloths go? It was exhausting and Adrian appreciated, or even acknowledged none of it. The time in the barn had taken the Adrian she knew and reduced him to an unrecognizable pit of need.

What would she even do if he were out? Emma had already noticed all the supplies missing and Owen would certainly notice when Adrian was no longer where he’d been put. She would be the prime suspect. There was no way she could get him out now, not when it was all so obvious. And Adrian wasn’t going to understand any of that. His caring about it was equally unlikely.

With this in mind she tossed a long hat pin from her collection into the bottom of the basket. The wash cloths, no clean, and the new ointment alongside what remained of her lunch and few other scraps from around the kitchen.

For a second, she considers adding the last of the fruit – a small pile of apple slices – but decides against it. Too much. If she brought that he would expect it going forward. He already got the substantial parts of her meals.

She brushes her hair over her shoulder and settles the basket into the crook of her elbow. Ready.

After everyone had settled for the evening she slipped out the back door and out into the field toward the barn.

From about one hundred paces away, the open door of the barn announces itself. Owen had likely been in to see Adrian this morning, given how early he and Thomas had left.

Meaning he’d eaten. He water had likely been filled. He was likely fine.

She could leave this for another time.

He wasn’t hungry.

Still. A thought emerges. He’d asked her to come. The image of his neck flashes and she quickens her pace. Better to get it over with. Maybe today she could just be quick.

Even with the door open, the air in the barn’s threshold is thick and heavy. Just standing there the hot air drained her, sucking her inward. Consumptive, oppressive.

No lantern today. Knew she’d forgotten something.

The inside is dim, the light from the slits in the walls enough to cast the rest of the space in a soft glow. The sun had yet to set, most of the light came from the open door behind her.

Moving inside, the texture of the ground beneath her feet changes quality. Without a barnyard the transition from field to barn always startles her some. Tonight was no different.

Adrian must have noticed it too, the chains shift with his breath stills as she cross closer. Her eyes roll involuntarily. Hadn’t he learned to expect her by now?

“Only me.” She calls. “Why is the door open?”

The chain clinks with purpose. Adrian’s head emerges from the corner.

“You’re here,” His voice is warm, relieved. “I was getting worried.”

Grace rounds the corner and Adrian backs up and sits back where he’d presumably been. She looks him over. His face is flushed, the colour nearly that of a sunburn.

Feeling his eyes on her, she sets the basket down.

“Dad left the door open,” he reports, “he was, confused about the ointment smell from yesterday.”

The ointment. She looks above him to the wall. A large dark spot, dried into the wood. Not obvious but visible. Going forward she needed to be more careful. The smell was gone though. Thankfully. The breath she’d been holding releases audibly.

Two coarse hands cradle hers. Dirt coats them.

“I threw him off, you don’t need to be worried about anything. I made him think I’m sick.”

His two thumbs stroke the top of her hand rhythmically.

“How?” Her gaze doesn’t leave the spot.

He smirks. “Mouse shit. And a little of mine.”

Her own repugnant curiosity gets the better of her. “What?”

Adrian is pleased with himself. “I told him I felt off. Put a bunch of it that I found in the corner in the water and crushed it up in there. Mixed some of that into the bucket I’m going in too. He thinks I drank that stuff, or that it got contaminated or something. Now it’s coming out of me, see.”

Grace stares, unable to reply. Adrian continues.

“He changed everything, aired the place out. But no more ointment smell. Problem solved.”

She backs up a little and removes herself from his hands.

“You intentionally soiled the water I brought you.”

Adrian’s smirk drops and his expression hardens. “You got a better idea? He can’t know you’ve been here. You know that.”

He reaches for her again. She doesn’t stop him.

“Besides. He replaced it this morning, so no harm done. Losing it wasn’t what I wanted either. But better that than have him come after you.”

Her heart flutters and she tightens her grip on his hand. He brings it to his lips. solution out

“I know its not the most elegant solution. But that stuff is so strong. I had to. I didn’t want to make things harder for us.”

Grace’s shoulder soften and she rests her back against the wall near him.

“I understand.”

Notes/From here:

• they try the hat pin, grace half asses this, it doesn’t work
• Ritual. This is harder today?
• Grace tries to leave, Adrian asks her if he can keep the hat pin, try it again himself
• Grace is reluctant, he convinces her, she leaves it there, he says something to the effect of “you can take it back next time you’re here” but grace really doesn’t like the next time idea.
• What stalls me with this scene is that the ending needs to create or suggest the conditions of Visit 9, which directly precedes the breakup. In that scene I need to have Adrian do or say something that confirms to Grace that the breakup/abandonment is okay. In a way he needs to indict himself through trying to get through to her emotionally/he can feel her pulling away. That I have no idea how to do and am still planning out.