Black and grey cross tattoo with four small crystal gems on the ribs, flanked by tribal swirl designs above and below.

Cross with swirls on the ribs

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A dark cross sits centrally on the side of the ribcage, with a small clear gem set into each arm. Bold black swirling linework with dotted accents runs above the cross and curves down the side of the torso, with some areas appearing softer grey. The ink is shown against warm skin with a black garment at the top of the frame.

Ribs Cross Swirl Gemstone Dot Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The stone came over on the Tuesday boat, wrapped in sailcloth and smelling of the tar it had been bedded in, and I have spent three evenings deciding where the cross should go. Mrs Gillies wants it facing the water, which the minister says is pagan and the sea says nothing about at all. I told her a cross stands best where the wind can find it. She laughed and said that was the sort of thing her Donald would have said, and then she went very quiet and asked me to cut the arms a little wider.

Her four stones came in a twist of paper: green glass from the bottle works in Oban, the colour of the bay on a flat day. I set one into each arm, pressed with a pin and a dab of pitch, and they caught the lamp so that the whole cross seemed to hold its breath. Around it I cut the old knotwork Donald's grandfather used on the bow of the Morag, the swirls that unfurl like bracken and then turn back on themselves. Along the edges I drilled the dots, one for each boat that came home that winter and one for each that did not.

I counted them twice to be sure. There were more dots than I wanted.

Last night she walked down the shingle with the lantern and stood where the tide had been, and I saw her put her hand flat against the cross, the way you would feel a horse for fever. Then she turned and told me the arms were wide enough after all. I did not ask her what she meant. I only sharpened the chisel and thought of you, and wondered whether you would have cut the stones differently.

Write soon. The boat is late again.

Yours, Iain