Black and grey tattoo of an ornate key on a beaded chain above a keyhole set in filigree scrollwork, on the forearm.

Ornate key and keyhole scrollwork on an arm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

An ornate key hangs from a beaded chain with dotted drops, with its bow decorated by flower-like rosettes. Below, a keyhole sits within a panel of scrolling foliage, flowers and small hearts. The work uses black and grey shading with white highlights, set against a dark background.

Forearm Key Keyhole Bead Chain Filigree Scrollwork Flower Heart Drop

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody in Saltcombe could remember a lock that Mercy Hale had not been asked to open, and nobody had ever seen her fail. So when the chandler's widow came down the hill on a wet Tuesday with a string of jet beads and a keyhole panel the size of a thumbprint, Mercy only raised an eyebrow and reached for her picks.

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The box was walnut, inlaid with brass scrollwork worn soft at the corners. Mercy turned it over twice. There was no keyhole on the lid or the hinges, only a pitted circle beneath a curl of carved leaves, as if the wood had grown the lock itself. 'It was my husband's,' the widow said. 'He told me the key hung on a chain round his mother's neck, and that she threw it off the harbour wall the night she left us.'

Mercy spent three evenings with the box under her lamp. On the fourth she sent the boy down to the slipway for the tide tables, and while he was gone she filed a key from a brass blank. She cut a bow of tiny rosettes the way her own father had taught her, each petal a small decision of its own. Then she strung it on the jet, with a drop of solder hanging from every third bead like rain on a wire.

When the widow returned, Mercy did not hand over the key. She pressed the carved panel with her thumb until the leaves gave way, and inside lay a folded letter, dry as paper ever stays in a sea town, in a hand the widow knew at once. Mercy closed the lid and wiped her fingers on her apron. 'The water never had the key,' she said. 'Your husband kept it all along, and he knew where you'd look.'