Black and grey crescent moon tattoo with a sleeping face, a black cat and blue beaded chains on the forearm.

Crescent moon, black cat and beaded chains on a forearm

Neo-trad · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A crescent moon with a stylised sleeping face in profile sits over the forearm, with a black cat perched on its lower curve and small star shapes scattered across the background. Fine dotted chains hang from the moon and end in blue gem drops, which add the only colour to the piece. The moon and cat are shaded in smooth greys with soft highlights, and the composition is centred and balanced along the arm.

Neo-trad Forearm Moon Crescent moon Face Cat Black cat Star Bead Chain Gem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mags,

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I'm writing this on the back of a delivery docket because the till drawer is full of flour and I can't find a clean sheet. The oven was already warm when I let Soot in from the yard, and she went straight to the cooling rack as if she'd been promoted. You'll remember she came with the shop, and she has never once agreed to be a bakery cat.

Last night I stood in the yard with the bins and looked up, which I never do at four in the morning. The moon was a thin paring over the chimney, and there was a sleeping face in it, eyes shut, as if she had been up all night too. Someone had strung little silver beads from her curve, and the blue drops at the ends caught the lamp above the back door. I thought of Ida, who had the place before us and kept that old recipe book with a note tucked inside the cover: Bake for the one who keeps the hours.

I did not understand it until the first tray came out. The crust cracked under my knuckle, the kitchen smelled of rye and burnt sugar, and the window went from black to the colour of ash. By then the moon had slid behind the chimney, and Soot had moved from the rack to the step outside, sitting on the wall as neatly as if she had drawn herself there.

I left the back door open so she could watch the light come up. Come and see the bread before Saturday.

Love, Nell