Fine line black cross tattoo on the upper back of a woman whose hair is in a bun, with a denim jacket slipped off one shoulder.

Small cross on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small, upright black cross sits on the upper back, close to the left shoulder blade, photographed from behind. The linework is thin and even with no shading, and the ink is solid black against the skin. The warm, sepia-toned backdrop and the pale denim jacket keep the focus on the tattoo, which occupies a small area of the composition.

Fine line Back Cross

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow came over the ridge at Hollin Fold on the eve of Candlemas, and by dark Agnes Coole could not see the byre from the kitchen door. Her son Will had taken the dogs out at four to bring in the last of the hill ewes, and he had not come back. She lit the lantern, hung it on the nail by the door, and sat with her hands in her apron, listening for barking.

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Her father had cut a mark into the stone gatepost the year the farm came to them, a single upright stroke with a short crossbar set a third of the way down, so that a man with snow in his eyes could know which way was home. The cuts were thin, no deeper than a fingernail, and the frost had worked into them every winter since. Agnes had never thought of it as anything but a way to find the gate.

Near midnight the dogs came scrabbling at the back door, plastered white, and Will came behind them with his face gone grey. He had found the flock bunched against the wall below the old quarry, but he had lost his way twice. Each time he had put his hand out, found the cold line of the post, and followed it down until the gate and the lantern light came up out of the storm.

In the morning Agnes walked out with a bucket of meal and stopped at the gatepost. The snow had filled the marks and drifted level, so she brushed them clear with her sleeve and felt the grooves under her glove. Her father had never meant them for anything but this. She set the bucket down and stood a while, one hand flat on the stone, counting the ewes coming down the white slope towards her.