Full back mandala and eye tattoo

The wheel came off the Mirror Tent again outside Ledbury, so we are stuck here a fortnight, and Mr Oake has finally let me near the paint pots. He says a fair is only as honest as its ceiling, and he wants the whole inside of the canvas worked like a clock face, rings within rings, so anyone standing under it feels the ground turning.

I spend my mornings with a compass and a pencil, pinning the centre. Every star point has to be struck from the same nail hole or it sulks, he says, and then it won't sit true. The lattice goes over the seams last, diamonds the width of a thumb, and I go cross-eyed by teatime. Pa's old gold leaf is still in the tin, so the medallion over the ticket booth gets a single eye in its middle, half-shut, as if it's watching the queue.

Last night the lamps were lit and the fairground went quiet. I stood under the canvas while the dusk came through the seams in little diamonds across the boards, and they shifted with the wind like something breathing. I thought of you counting the chapel windows back home. Mr Oake caught me gawping and said the trick is shading: nothing is ever solid black, you have to leave the eye of the pattern open.

Send the good scissors and the brown wool socks. I'll be home for the hop picking, if the wheel holds. Your loving sister, Hester.