I thought it may be helpful to provide some visual aid to accompany the material. Understanding the space I am working with is useful to continuity in the writing. I have tweaked this some to make it clearer, the important spots and features are marked where necessary. These were marked as public domain/free to share by google image search.
The Barn
I think the most important location in my work is the old barn where much of part one occurs. Here is a layout of it as I currently understand and am working off (my drawing). The top of the image faces east, the bottom west (the scan cuts this off, sorry).
The barn has a main aisle down the center, various tools, wooden barrels, and distilling equipment on the floor, as well as a dual hay loft on both sides running to the livestock pens in the back.
There are two livestock pens at the back of the barn where the floor becomes dirt. These have gate doors that have broken and been removed, as marked. The wall cordoning off the livestock pens from the rest of the barn is made of stone/concrete/something like that. The stone wall becomes wood a ways up, where it meets the hay loft. Adrian’s spot is along this interior wall.
Story wise, the light inside is where the compass positions become important. Read on while I proceed to be completely cool and normal about this. There is a gate directly across from the pen where Adrian sits that opens out into the field, but since this is eastern facing, it loses light quickly through the afternoon. The slits that Grace describes repositioning the lock to be within in scene 1.3.3 are likely coming from this gate. It isn’t a wide open gate. I imagine it as partially boarded over. It also needs to obscure the main door and the light from Grace’s lantern through the gate, so they are not visible from Owen’s house. Hence the coordinates. The view from where Adrian sits in the pen to the gate is almost a threshold space not unlike some paintings I have thought a lot about. In particular, Adolph Menzel’s Room of a Bookdealer. Or François-Marius Granet’s Man Reading at a Window. But imagine these were inside a barn, pastoral view instead of the ruins? Both have the threshold with the quality of darkness I’m going for in the story. The rooms are dark, people live there, but not right now? There’s something almost liminal about these paintings that I can’t let go of even though there’s a person in it or evidence of life that contradicts that reading.
The barn is an in-between space in that sense. It’s at the back of Owen’s property, has fallen into disuse. Full of busted equipment. No one hears anything that happens there but at the same time, no one is meant to be there. It’s a place people used to be. Perhaps a little haunted. Not by Adrian per se, rather something that predates him.
Above: Menzel, Room of a Bookdealer (1848). Below: Granet, Man Reading at a Window (1799-1800).
Anyways back to the barn. Here are some other inspo photos to give an idea of what I mean. They are all external photos but that I think matters more than the interior, since the interior is basically what I imagine.
I often drive around the rural area surrounding my city to see if any particular barn strikes me. Nothing yet, though the search has narrowed significantly since I started. I have yet to find the exact place that is THE barn. Maybe one day.
My barn doesn’t have a silo, but the stone to wood look is correct. My barn is less red. It’s already old by the beginning of the story. The windows are higher too.
My barn is not entirely stone, the vibe of this one is correct though. The overgrowth around it, it looks sort of lost to time. Faded paint, etc. Take the previous image, weather the wood more, put it in this images environment, and that would be pretty close. I have found that over time the barn becomes a composite of many places.