Black and grey blackwork tattoo of a gothic cathedral with crescent moons and geometric lines on the thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Gothic cathedral with crescent moons on thigh

Blackwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A detailed gothic cathedral with tall spires, arched windows and flowing lines rises above a row of smaller buildings, with two crescent moons and a small diamond shape above it. Below the buildings, overlapping arches and fine geometric triangles form a base, all rendered in dense hatching and clean outline work. The design is entirely black ink on skin, set against a dark background that makes the linework stand out.

Blackwork Geometric Thigh Castle Spire Crescent moon Diamond Triangle Geometric line Building

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, the pair of you, and mind the cat, she's been sulking since the tide turned. You want the cathedral? Everyone asks about the cathedral. Mr Pennock in room four asked me on his first night, and he's been asking ever since, which is why he's never once gone down to the front to look at the sea.

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Forty years I've kept this house on Gull Terrace, and the cathedral has come up out of the bay on nine nights of the year, always when the moon is doubled. Two crescents, one either side of the spire, like a pair of hooks. My mother said the town built it first and the sea took it back, which is the sort of thing mothers say when they want you in bed by ten.

The summer my brother Tom went out past the breakwater, the church was up every night of the week. Three spires on the eastern side, lit from inside with grey light, and the bell rang with nobody at the rope. I stood at the window with a lamp and counted the arches. Eleven. There should have been twelve. Tom was the twelfth, I told myself, and I went down to the shingle every morning to check.

He came back in October, soaked to the bone, with a diamond of salt rubbed into the back of his hand and no memory of the boat. He said the nave had a door at the bottom that opened onto nothing but rain. He walked through it and came out on our own doorstep, and the cathedral had let him go because he'd told it the truth.

So if you're going down to the front tonight, take a lamp and count the arches. If you come back with eleven, leave the door on the latch. You'll know it's only the sea.