Black and grey tattoo of an ornate skeleton key crossed by a dragonfly on the forearm, with part of a triangle tattoo visible at the top left.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Key and dragonfly on the forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A skeleton key with a decorative scrolled bow runs diagonally across the forearm, with a dragonfly's wings and body overlapping its shaft. The design uses dark outlines with soft grey shading on the wings and key, and the skin is lit evenly against a dark background. The composition is centred on the key, with a small part of a second triangular tattoo visible in the top left corner.

Traditional Forearm Key Dragonfly Triangle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The dragonfly had been wedged in the hasp of the strongbox for three days before anyone thought to lift it out, and by then its wings had gone the colour of wet slate. Mabel Oddie turned the box over on the bench and tilted the lamp. The key was still seated in the lock, a heavy iron thing with a scrolled bow like the curl of a fern, and the insect lay along its shaft as neatly as if it had been placed there for a purpose.

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Her father had made the box for Edwin Caddick, a shipping agent on Humber Street, the winter before the Caddick brig went down off Spurn with all hands. Nobody came to collect it, or to pay. For eleven years it sat on a shelf above the forge with the key turned and the lid shut tight. Then the damp got into the hinges, and Mabel carried it down to the bench with her sleeves rolled to the elbow.

She had tried every blank in the drawer before she thought to take a file to the key itself. The bit was fine, the kind her father used for watch work, and she worked the wards a hair at a time while the harbour bell rang the hours. When the bolt slid back, the lid rose on its own weight and warm air came up smelling of cedar and salt. The dragonfly lifted from the shaft with a click of stiff wings and flew past her, out through the window and over the masts.

Inside lay a single folded sheet in her father's cramped hand. It was not a bill. It said the key had been cut for a door in Caddick's counting house, that the door was bricked up the day after the brig sailed, and that she should keep the key, because it was the only honest thing in the building. Mabel read it twice, folded it into her apron pocket, and went to find her coat. Out on the quay the dragonfly turned circles above the water, catching the last of the light, and she let it be.