Metallic gold and silver mandala temporary tattoo with chevron shapes on a woman's upper back, between the shoulder blades.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Gold and silver mandala on upper back

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A woman with her hair in a loose bun is seen from behind, wearing an off-shoulder knitted jumper. A cluster of metallic gold and silver ornamental designs sits between her shoulder blades, centred on a large mandala with floral motifs and small chevron shapes. The foil-like finish catches the light against a plain pale wall, and the composition is tightly framed on the upper back.

Back Mandala Floral Chevron Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The scaffold came down on Tuesday and I finally got a proper look at the boss above the chancel arch. You'd laugh at me, I've been up that ladder every morning for three weeks with a soft brush and a torch clamped in my teeth, but nothing prepared me for it. Someone laid a rosette of gold leaf over the plaster, a ring of silver round it, and the petals inside are all small looping circles, the kind you'd expect on a prayer rug. Chevrons run along the edge like a row of folded paper birds. Half the silver has gone black. The gold is still bright enough to throw my lamp back in my eyes.

Mrs Harcourt from the village says the castle was never a castle to the monks who had the chapel first, only a farmhouse with a grudge. I don't know whether to believe her. What I do know is that the chevrons all point one way, towards the east window, and the gold is laid thickest where the morning sun would have struck it during service. Whoever made this wanted it seen for a minute and then forgotten, the way light sits on water.

Yesterday I cleaned a patch the size of my palm and found a second layer underneath, a pattern of tiny leaves in lead white, and beneath that a faint line of charcoal where somebody had struck the whole circle with a length of string and a nail. Four hundred years of hands, Nell, and every one of them trying to make a thing that would catch the light and then go dark on purpose.

I'm going to leave the silver as it is. Come up in June. I'll show you the string mark myself.

Love, Ruth