Chinese zodiac characters flash sheet

The commission was for the Plough and Harrow, twelve boards for the wall above the bar, one beast for each year of the cycle. A sailor who drank there had copied the characters off a ship's bell for Ferris years ago, and Ferris could copy anything he saw but could read none of it. Nell practised on old newspaper after supper, counting strokes under her breath. The rat had a fussy top. The dragon nearly finished her. She learned to lift off the brush at the right moment so the black would thin into the grain like smoke.

On the last evening the landlord, Pim Haskett, stood in the doorway with his thumbs in his waistcoat and asked which year it was meant to be, so he could tell the regulars the right beast was on the wall. Ferris went very still. Then he laughed, a dry wheeze that turned into a cough. He had copied the bell upside down for the rabbit and the snake, and nobody had noticed for thirty years because nobody in the village could read them either. "They're signs," he said. "They keep the wall looking like a wall."

Nell carried the pig board out to the yard in the last of the light, past the stacked ash logs from the wood at the edge of the village, and held it up against the hedge. The last stroke was still tacky. A single bead of ink slid down from it, slow as a snail, and sank into the grain of the board before she could wipe it.