Photograph of a red and black butterfly tattoo with a pink wash swirl and small star sparkles across the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Red butterflies in a swirl on upper back

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A cluster of red butterflies with black outlines flies in a loose spiral across the upper back. A soft pink and red watercolour-style wash sits behind them, with tiny four-pointed star sparkles scattered around the edges. The shading is smooth and the colour dominates the composition against the plain dark background.

Back Butterfly Swirl Wash Star Sparkle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The butterflies came up off the cut on Tuesday, just after the lock gates had been opened for the Anne Sophie. I was on the cabin roof with the tea, watching Dad fight the paddle, when the air over the water went red. Hundreds of them, or what felt like hundreds, rising in a loose wheel above the reeds and turning round and round as if someone had wound them up. Their wings were the colour of the brick on the old warehouse at Stoke Bridge, edged in black like pen strokes, and where they flew the mist off the water took on a pink wash, soft as breath on glass.

Dad said they were only painted ladies, blown up on the wind from the coast, and that I should stop gawping and mind the rope. But they circled the boat three times, and on the third I saw a few drop down and settle on the brass rail by my hand, as if they wanted a proper look at me. One had a chip out of its left wing. I told it I knew how that felt.

I have not told Mum about the stars yet, the little four-pointed flickers that hung in the air where the swarm had been, like sparks from a bonfire that forgot to fall. They lasted until the lock keeper's dog started barking. Ask Jem at the chandlery if he saw them too. He won't say so, but he'll go quiet, and that will be your answer.

Come up at Easter. I will show you the place where the water turns.

Love, Ruth