Black and grey owl tattoo with a pentagram on the head, wings and scrollwork across the shoulder and upper arm, with script lettering on the chest.

Owl and pentagram shoulder and arm piece

Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large owl with wide eyes and a pentagram on its brow fills the shoulder and upper arm, with feathered wings extending down the arm and over the shoulder blade. The fine, engraved-style linework is shaded in black and grey, with a red-toned area of skin visible beneath part of the design. Ornate scrollwork and a pale panel surround the owl, and a line of script on the chest runs down the ribcage.

Shoulder Upper arm Chest Owl Pentagram Wing Feather Scrollwork Script Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mum, the owl came back to the chandlery on Tuesday, the same night the tide refused to turn at Gull Steps. Mr Pell swears it sat on the mooring bollard with a dark star pressed into its brow, as if someone had branded it there, and it watched each boat come in as though it were counting them off a list only it could read.

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I took the lantern down after closing. The harbour ledger was gone from the office drawer, and in its place lay a sheet of pale card with scrollwork drawn round the edges, the sort the old sailmakers used to sign their sails. The fine lines looked engraved rather than inked. Across the middle, in a hand I did not recognise, someone had written that the sea was only a matter of folding time and space. Under that, smaller, a line I couldn't finish reading before the lantern guttered.

When I turned the card over, the back showed a harbour map, every slip and mooring marked, and a single red eye drawn where the Steps meet the water. The owl was on the sill behind me. It did not blink. Its wings were spread wide over the window, feathers lifting like the pages of a book being turned by a wind from nowhere.

I have put the card in the biscuit tin with your letters, and I have not opened the drawer since. If you hear that the owl has gone quiet, or that the tide has finally turned, write to me straight away. I will be at the pier at first light, with the ledger under my arm, waiting to see which of us the sea decides to keep.