Large blackwork tattoo of a grinning shadowy creature with sharp claws and pale eyes on a person's upper back, with a small skull-like figure holding a bone at its lower left.

Grinning shadow creature on upper back

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large solid black shadow of a grinning, horned creature with pale almond-shaped eyes and jagged claws fills the upper back, its edges broken up into speckled, distressed ink. A small skull-headed figure holding a bone sits at the lower left, connected to the main shape by a thick black stroke. The work is entirely black ink in shades of black and grey, with strong contrast between the dense fill and the bare skin highlights.

Blackwork Back Ghost Grin Claw Skull Bone

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Ashdown's lantern had gone out twice before Tobias Quill reached the bottom of the east stair, and each time the dark closed behind him like wet wool. He had been sent down for coal, which at Wrenmoor Castle meant a cellar nobody had swept since the roof came in. Above him the wind worked at the broken windows. Below, something was breathing slow and pleased.

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The shadow lay across the flagstones where the moonlight should have fallen. It had a horned head and far too many teeth, and when it grinned, the pale slits of its eyes narrowed with what Tobias could only call good manners. Beside it sat the small thing the stable lads had warned him about, a skull on a body no bigger than a cat, clutching a bone the length of a rolling pin. It rapped the bone twice on the stone, the way the steward did when he wanted the hall quiet.

"You've come for the coal," the shadow said, though its mouth never moved. "Take the good lumps. And take her a message from me. The bone is hers now, if she still wants it back."

He filled his apron and climbed without looking behind him, one lump in each fist, his heart knocking against his ribs. Mrs Ashdown was waiting in the scullery with her hands on her hips and her spectacles pushed up into her grey hair. He tipped the coal into the scuttle and shrugged. "It sends its regards," he said. When he bent to fetch the last piece from his boot, a bone was lying there instead, polished white, with a small grin scratched across one end.