Crescent moon in dotwork on a forearm

The last up train went through at twenty to one and I have been sat in the signal box since, with the lamp turned low so I can see the sky over the goods yard. You will laugh, but the moon is only a thin paring tonight, the sort Mam used to cut off the top of a loaf for us. It hangs over the water tower as if someone pressed a thumb into the dark and left a smudge round the edge. The side facing us is bright and the rest is only guessed at, grey on black, dusted with specks that thicken where the shadow meets the light.

Mr Ashworth says the old men called that the dark moon's shoulder and could read the weather from it. I told him the weather is written on the telegraph wires, and he told me to go and look at them, so I did. Every wire was furred white with frost, like sugar on a cake. I expect it will be a clear morning for your wedding after all.

Here is the thing I have been meaning to write. Harold from the parcels office found a leather case on platform four with a sketchbook inside, full of that very shape, a dozen moons in pencil, each one a little rounder than the last, as if the person drawing them kept trying to get the light right. Nobody has claimed it, so it is under my desk. I think you should have it. You always did sit up drawing the gas lamps when you should have been asleep.

The lost property form says to hold items for thirty days. I have been counting. I will post it on Thursday, the first train out, and then the moon can go back to being nobody's business but its own.

Your loving brother, Tom