Black and grey linework tattoo of a curled creature with long ears, surrounded by swirling foliage and mushrooms, on a limb.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Creature curled among swirling foliage and mushrooms

Botanical · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A curled, long-eared creature sits at the centre of the design, drawn with fine black outlines and light grey shading. Ornamental swirls, leaves and mushroom shapes frame the figure and fill the space around it. The image is a close-up of the tattoo on skin, with the design filling most of the frame.

Botanical Other Creature Foliage Mushroom Swirl Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow has been falling since the coach left the valley, and by the time you reach the Hollin Gate Inn the lane has gone under completely. Mrs Aske meets you at the door with a lamp and a low opinion of the weather. The blue room is taken, she says, and the green one has a draught that once put a bishop in bed for a week. The attic under the eaves is where the drovers slept, so it is yours.

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The attic smells of woodsmoke and turned earth. Someone has pinned a sheet of paper to the beam: a drawing of a hare curled asleep among ferns and fat mushrooms, its long ears folded down like a letter. Beneath it, in faded pencil, are the words Do not wake her. Not in winter. You laugh at that and lie down, and the fire below ticks like a clock cooling.

Near midnight you wake to a soft scrape, like a claw on boards. The hatch is open. The landing is ringed with pale toadstools that glow faintly, and at the top of the stairs sits a hare the size of a fox, grooming one paw with great care. It watches you the way a landlord watches a guest who has not yet paid. Beyond the shutter, the drift has opened into a path of prints, all leading one way, and none of them yours.

At first light the path runs down to the gate, where Mrs Aske is waiting with the lamp still lit. Tea's on, she says, and nods at the hedge, where a ring of mushrooms has pushed through the snow in a perfect curl. She always goes out first. Somebody has to be the one who comes back and leaves the sheet up.