Black and grey botanical vine tattoo with leaves and curling swirls running down the centre of a person's back.

Black and grey vine tattoo down the back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A climbing vine with curling tendrils and broad, flower-like leaves runs from the upper back down to the lower back. The stems and leaf edges are outlined in black, with soft grey shading giving the leaves depth. The bare back fills most of the frame against a dark background, with the top of a pair of jeans visible at the bottom edge.

Botanical Back Vine Leaves Flower Swirl Tendril

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had sealed the pass for nine days when Marta found the vine growing up the inside of the north wall, between the kitchen hearth and the stairs. It had no business there. The stone was cold enough to crack a finger, and the only green in the valley was the holly by the byre, which had been dead since Candlemas.

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Her father said it was the old tale come back, the one about the widow who climbed out of the woodpile in the hard winter and asked for a bed. He said you gave her the bed and never asked her name, and in spring the vines went over the roof and the inn stood empty of guests but full of leaves. Marta had heard it a hundred times and thought it a story for keeping children away from the woodpile.

On the ninth night the tendrils reached the lamp hook. Grey leaves unfolded, broad as a hand, shaded at their edges like ash on a cooling coal. Marta took the carving knife and cut one. It bled sap the colour of weak tea, and the whole vine shivered down the wall toward the cellar door.

She went after it with a candle. Below, the wine casks had split, and the widow sat on the lowest one, combing a tangle of stems with her fingers. Marta did not ask her name. She asked instead what the widow wanted, and the widow smiled and said only what everyone wanted in a frost: a door left unbarred until morning.

Marta drew the yard bolt. By dawn the vine had gone out over the drifts, and the road to the valley was lined with pale leaves, each one turned to face the thaw.