Black line design of a long, diagonal script quote that ends in a feather, birds and a dreamcatcher, shown on a white background.

Script quote with feather and dreamcatcher

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A tall, narrow design of a handwritten script quote running diagonally upwards, reading "The will of God will never lead me where the grace of God cannot protect me." At the base, a feather, small birds and a circular dreamcatcher-style motif are drawn in fine black linework. The image is black ink on white with no shading or colour, and the text fills most of the vertical composition.

Lettering Fine line Script Quote Feather Dreamcatcher Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The gulls had been beating themselves against the lantern glass since three in the morning, and by first light there were four small petrels on the gallery grating, no bigger than my thumb. I cleared the glass with the cloth and the spirit, the way Mr Ashdown taught me before his chest gave out, then gathered the birds into my cap. One was still breathing. Its feather was grey and soft as a shaving brush. I pulled it free and kept it in my waistcoat pocket, though I could not have told you why.

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Ada had copied the line onto the back of a seed packet and pinned it above the kettle, in the loops and tails she used when she wanted a thing read aloud. Her brother had sent a hoop from Liverpool, a ring of willow with waxed thread strung across it, and she had hung it from the lamp chain to catch the draughts. I had argued with the words for a fortnight, the way a man argues with weather. The rock was four miles out, the boat came when the sea allowed, and the sea had not allowed it since the Tuesday.

On the Friday the wind backed round to the north-east and the lamp hissed like a kettle left on. Late in the watch I tied the feather to the rim of the hoop with a length of Ada's red wool. The web trembled with every gust, throwing the lamplight across the whitewashed walls in small bright coins. I did not pray, not in any proper way. I counted the turns of the light, eleven seconds a turn, and said the line once for each one.

The relief boat came in at dawn, bucking, with Ada's brother at the tiller in his oilskins. He looked up at the dreamcatcher swinging from the lantern and laughed, and I let him. The birds were still alive in my cap and the sea lay flat as a plate, and I had not yet found a better way to say that the thing had held.