Black and grey tattoo of four moths stacked vertically down the centre of a person's back, linked by dotted lines, with a small semicolon above.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Four moths stacked down a spine

Traditional · Back · Black and grey · Photo

Four moths, each a different size and wing pattern, are arranged one below another along the centre of the back, from shoulder blades to lower back. Fine dotted lines link the moths and run to a small semicolon at the top, with shading in black and grey creating depth in the wings and bodies. The image is framed tightly on the back with a grey garment draped over one shoulder and no face visible.

Traditional Dotwork Back Moth Dotted line Semicolon Spine

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Oswin, the moths came up out of the cellar of the Vellan house the week the Tarrow river froze, and they have not left the lamp glass since. Mother says I must stop writing to you about them, but the four of them sat there all night and would not be shooed with a broom. Cook says they are only the cold making its way up through the floorboards, but I have seen how they keep their places.

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The largest has wings striped like a magistrate's gown, black at the edge and faded to ash in the middle. Below it sits a pale one, pale as a communion wafer, with a body like a folded letter. The third has two dark eyes on its wings that follow the candle when I move it. The smallest is no wider than my thumbnail and it sits lowest of all, nearly touching the sill. Father used to pin moths in a line like that on his board, one below another, and joined them with a thread of tiny brass pins so that nobody would lose the order of things. He said the dead keep a line between them so the living can find their way back.

The Crown's clerk came on Tuesday asking for the household ledger, the one where Father wrote the things he meant to finish. I found the last page before I let him take it. There is nothing on it but a single mark, a semicolon, pressed so hard the nib tore the paper, and then a blank space where the sentence should have gone on. I have decided the moths are that mark. They are holding the place open until someone is brave enough to write the rest.

Come home at Candlemas and bring the good ink. I will set a stop beneath the smallest moth, and we will see what sentence follows. Your sister, Ida.