Black and grey fine line tattoo of a small cross with a dotted chain above it, on the side of a finger, with silver rings on the hand.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small cross with dotted chain on a finger

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A small black and grey cross sits on the side of a finger, with a shaded outline and short radiating lines around its arms. A loose line of tiny dots curves above it, like a chain or beaded strand. The black and white photograph is taken close up against a dark background, with silver rings on the other fingers.

Fine line Hand Cross Dot Chain Finger

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Harker found the beads on the back stairs of Seaview House on the Tuesday, scattered across the linoleum like spilt peppercorns. She gathered them into her apron pocket without a word, because Edie Lamb had been pacing the landing since breakfast and would have to be told eventually.

Keep reading

"They're in my pocket," Mrs Harker said, and Edie sat down hard on the bottom step. The cross had been her grandmother's, a little thing of bog oak with arms worn smooth as river stones. Edie had lost it once before, to the sea off the groyne, and the chain had come back to her two days later caught in the wrack. This time there was no chain to save. Mrs Harker tipped the beads into Edie's palm and counted them out loud, nine small and one larger, the pattern her grandmother always said meant you were allowed to start again.

That afternoon they walked the tideline to Hollow Cove, where the lodgers' children hunted for sea glass. Edie kept her eyes on the wet sand, turning over weed and razor shell, until a length of dark wood lay half buried by the surf. It was no cross, only a fence post bleached silver by years of weather, but its end had split into a shape that might be arms if you squinted. Edie squinted. That night she carved the rest at the kitchen table with her grandfather's penknife, while Mrs Harker strung the beads on fresh green thread and muttered that the kettle had gone cold.

By morning the cross hung from the new thread, uneven and a little lopsided. Edie held it up to the window, where the sun came off the bay in long bright blades. "It looks like it's shouting," she said. Mrs Harker said that was the nearest thing to a blessing she had heard in years, and went downstairs to fetch the bread. Out past the groyne the water kept breaking into light, and the little wooden cross caught each flash and threw it back.