Two forearms side by side, one with a red heart and gold filigree tattoo beside purple flowers, the other with a gold key and script name in Traditional style.

Heart and key tattoos on two forearms

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

Two forearms are shown close together. On the left, a red heart with gold scrollwork and a keyhole sits beside two purple flowers, with script lettering above. On the right, a gold skeleton key wrapped in thorny stems has script lettering below it, and both designs use bold dark outlines with mostly solid fill.

Traditional Forearm Heart Key Keyhole Flower Thorn Script Name Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The key had been cut by hand, and Ada could tell from the burr along its bit that whoever filed it had been in a hurry and had not cared who noticed. It was an old skeleton key with a heart-shaped bow, the gilt worn to brass where thumbs had rubbed it, and someone had bound its shank in a loop of thorned briar so the points stood out like a little crown. Eli Harcourt set it on her counter beside a tin of violets pressed flat between two sheets of newspaper, and said the tin was the thing he needed opened.

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"It's a heart-shaped lock," she said, turning the box under the lamp. The enamel was cracked at one corner and the filigree had gone dull, but the keyhole was clean. "Where did you get the key?"

"My mother had it made in Sheffield before the war. She never told me where the original went. I found this in her sewing basket with a bit of ribbon round it." He picked at the knuckle of his thumb. "Nobody's managed it since the funeral. My sister tried a hairpin and bent it double."

Ada eased the wards with a bent pin, the way her father had taught her, and the key turned with no more fuss than a kettle lid. Inside there were no letters, as she had half expected, only a folded ferry ticket for Ostend dated 1919, a lock of fair hair tied in green thread, and a slip of paper in neat copperplate: Keep the violets dry, the rest will keep itself.

Eli stood very still. Ada slid the ticket back under the flap and closed the lid, and when he asked what he owed her, she told him the key was his already and to take the violets home before they crumbled.