Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Heraldic crest tattoo on a finger

Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A small heraldic crest sits on the side of a finger, with a tower or turret above a shield that carries two roundels and a letter S. The linework is dark and defined, with soft grey shading across the shield and flourishes. The crest is centred on a plain, pale finger against a dark background, with a partial tattoo visible at the left edge.

Hand Crest Shield Tower Flourish

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hal,

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The Sallow arms went up over the forge door on Tuesday, though nobody in Thornwick Hollow can say who ordered the painter from Gedling. Mrs Pim swears the tower was never a tower but a chimney, and that the two roundels are cheeses, which Father would have laughed at. I have kept the receipt, if you want it.

The trouble started at the edge of Whinmoor, where the beeches come down to the last cottages. Old Sallow claimed the forest had been his since a charter nobody has read in a century, and he nailed a shield to the oak by the stile every midsummer. The boys pulled the nails out. This year the shield was new, with a letter S in the chief, a turret gone grey with damp, and a fox's head that looked suspiciously like the postmaster.

I went out last night with a lantern to see who had climbed the oak. There was nobody. Only the shield, wet through, and under it a bed of ferns pressed flat in the shape of a knee. I stood there a long while. When I came back the forge lamp was lit and Mrs Pim was on the step, pointing up at the beeches, where a single leaf the colour of gilt had come loose and was turning slowly down onto the S.

Write back soon. Your loving sister, Edith