Black and grey botanical tattoos with an arrow and script lettering on a woman's upper arm and forearm, in a photo where she wears a white dreamcatcher-print t-shirt.

Floral and leaf tattoos on upper arm and forearm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photo is cropped at the neck and shows a woman's arms, with a white t-shirt printed with a colourful dreamcatcher and mandala design that is not a tattoo. On the upper arm, a black and grey floral tattoo with fine shading sits beside an arrow with partly visible word lettering, and on the forearm a darker leaf or botanical shape is shaded with soft grey tones. The composition is close and well lit, with the tattoos clearly visible against the skin.

Botanical Lettering Upper arm Forearm Flower Leaf Arrow Script Lettering Mandala

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The rain came over the top field on Tuesday and by Wednesday the lane was a river, so Father carried the post himself on the donkey and came back with your letter wrapped in oilcloth and a sprig of something green stuck in the twine. I have pressed it in the family Bible at the Ruth page, where it will stay until somebody asks what it is. He says it is hellebore from the wood by the old sheep pen, the kind that grows where nothing else will, and that you wrote to say the mill girls there sleep eight to a room. I do not like that, Nell. Write me the names of the girls, and I will pray for them by name.

The wood has changed since you went. The big oak by the stile split in the August storm and Mr Corey has been sawing it into rounds for the bakehouse. Under the bark there were ants in pale lines going round and round, as if they had lost the path and would rather walk in a circle than admit it. I thought of you, and of that drawing you made on my arm with the lead pencil the summer before you left, the arrow pointing east and the words beneath it you made me promise to keep. I have kept them. Some days they are the only thing I can read.

Keep going, the ink said, and so I did, past the stile and down to the crossroads, where I stood a long while looking at the signpost with its one arm pointing toward the city. Then I came home and put the kettle on, because the wood will still be there when we are older.

Write soon. Tell me the mill has a window.

Yours always, Ada