Fine line face and bird on the hand

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A small black ink tattoo of a woman's face in profile, with a bird shape curving over the head and hair. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the design sits on the side of the hand between the thumb and palm. The image is a close, well-lit photo of the hand resting against denim and a grey shirt, with a gold watch on the wrist.

Fine line Hand Face Woman Bird Hair Profile Line art

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain had been coming sideways through the fish market since before the bells, and Mabel Crane was still haggling over a single pike when the bird dropped off the gutter and settled in her hair. Nobody else seemed to notice it. The eel man kept his hands in his apron and his prices in his mouth, and Mabel kept her own mouth shut, because a bird that settles on the head is a bird that wants listening to.

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Her grandmother had told her about the dove. It came to the women of the Sheen family once in every hard winter, sat in the hair, and asked for one spoken word in exchange for one true sight. Mabel had given hers away at fourteen, to a man who was not worth it, and had gone quiet ever since. The dove folded a wing over her temple the way a shawl falls, and she saw the eel man's thoughts move across his face like ink in water. He meant to charge her double, and his wife would count the coins twice.

She opened her mouth, and the word came out plain as a dropped spoon. 'Halve it.' The eel man stared. Under the awning, his wife stopped chewing her bread. Mabel named the true price for the pike, the eels and a cold bottle of brine, and the eel man, caught out, paid it without another word. The rain thinned to drizzle, then to nothing.

Walking home along the wet cobbles with the fish wrapped in newspaper, she felt the dove lift and settle again, lighter now, and heard herself humming a tune her grandmother used to hum, badly, the way you do when nobody is listening. The bird gave one soft note back. That was the whole bargain, and it was enough.