Black inverted pentagram tattoo with sharp, flowing linework and tapered points on the upper arm, in a blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Inverted pentagram on upper arm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A single inverted pentagram is shown in solid black ink, with a central circle and a double-outlined star. The lines taper and curve, giving the design a sharp, thorn-like edge against the skin. The tattoo fills most of the frame on a close crop of the arm, with a blurred indoor background and a small pale mark visible at the top.

Blackwork Upper arm Pentagram Star Circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ada Bellamy's father cut the star into the lintel of the mill the spring the river came up over the weir. He used a blackthorn switch and a hot poker, and when the village asked him why it was turned on its head, he said the points had to face the ground, or the water would think it was welcome.

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The villagers didn't like it, but they liked the flood less, and the mill stayed dry. Every March after that, Ada walked the parish bounds with a coil of tarred twine and a bag of sloe stones. At each stile she tied a thorn branch into the shape of the star, points down, the way her father had shown her.

Nobody remembered what the circle in the middle was for. Ada's mother said it was the place where the water was asked to stop. Ada thought it was where the star kept its breath.

The last year she walked the bounds, the river rose again and the cattle at Hobb's Ford stood in it to their hocks. Ada knelt at the final stile, pushed the last thorn into the wet ground, and heard the water turn back the way it had come, slow and grudging, like a dog called off a bone. She went home by the lane with her boots full of mud, and she never asked anyone whether they had seen it.