Hand-drawn flash design of four stacked motifs in bold black linework with green, red and blue wash, including a swirling vine, a flame trail and a wave.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Four elemental motifs in black ink and wash

Mixed · Flash

A vertical hand-drawn design on white paper shows four stacked motifs. A green swirling vine sits at the top, followed by a black animal-like figure with green wash, a trail of red and orange flame, and a blue wave with a dark rounded figure at the base. The bold black linework is filled in with loose coloured wash, and the design is centred with generous space around it.

Swirl Vine Flame Wave Spiral Creature

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The gate at the top of Hollin Lane has finally come down, and Mother says the vine did it. It had wound through the posts for so long that the wood split along the grain, and when the Abbot boys hauled on the chain it simply gave way. You'll remember the creature carved above the latch, the one with curled ears that you swore was a fox and I swore was a cat. Nan Pell said it was neither, only the thing that lives in the hedge when nobody is watching. It's wrapped in sacking in the cart now, bound for the wheelwright on Thursday.

I kept a bit of the flame, though. Under the gatepost the soil was black and warm, and where it met the red clay I found a shard of old lamp glass, scorched orange on one side. It sits on the windowsill beside the river stones Father brought back from the ford. Each morning the light comes through and throws a stripe across the table, and I think of the mill pool turning blue and then white, the way it did the day you left.

Something happened on Sunday that I have not told Mother. I went down to the water with the lamp and the glass, meaning to leave them on the stones as Nan taught us. The mist was thick and the reeds were loud. When I looked up there was a shape on the far bank, low and patient, its tail curled over its back, watching me like a stranger about to speak. After a while it lowered its head to drink, and then it was gone into the alders.

I have decided the gate was never the point. The vine will grow over the hole where it stood, and I will let it. Write when the boats come in, and tell me whether the sea has a creature in it too.

Yours, Ilse