Dragon and red rose tattoo design

It was grey as wet slate, with wings like cut tar and rust-red blotches where old burns had healed. It ate coal dust and the sugar crusts Ada scraped from the bottom of the pan, and every dawn it climbed to the bow to watch the lock gates swing. She had found it curled round a rose cutting she'd carried from her mother's garden, wrapped in oilcloth. Through the frost that rose bloomed red and orange, and the dragon kept its wings folded over it like a tent.

Mr Gosling, the lock keeper, wanted the Hesper sold for scrap and the creature sent to the knacker's yard in Reading. So one black night Ada cast off with no lamps lit and took her boat through the flooded lock by feel. The green leaf of the rose knocked against the hull like a hand at a door. At the top gate the dragon unfurled, and its wings tore the mist apart above the mill as it circled once, low enough that Ada could see the rust spots glowing in the dark.

When she got home the rose stood on the cabin sill with one petal fallen, and beside it lay a single red scale. Some folk say the dragon flew north to the moors. I say it is still up there, keeping its wings over something small and stubborn. Whenever the ice comes down on the Kennet, I hear wings over the lock, and I leave the cabin door open a crack.