Black and grey realism tattoo of a woman with sugar skull face paint and a spiderweb, with a rose beneath, on a forearm.

Sugar skull portrait and rose on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman with sugar skull face paint, a spiderweb motif on her forehead and long flowing hair is shown in the upper part of the design, with a large rose below. The shading is smooth and detailed, with soft gradations in the hair and skin and fine linework on the lace-like patterns around the eyes and mouth. The tattoo is entirely in black and grey ink, set against a plain background of denim.

Realism Forearm Sugar skull Woman Spiderweb Rose Hair Portrait

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The barge Hesper had hauled coal along the Nene for forty years, and every spring Maud Calloway painted a new rose on her cabin door to keep the river civil. The spring after the flood she painted a skull instead, pale as chalk, with a web of black thread across its brow. The lock-keepers at Thrapston laughed until they saw the spiders come out of the paint and walk along the rails.

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Her husband Ned had gone under at the weir in February. The river had kept him, as rivers do, and the parish said it was God's will and sent round a tin of ham. Maud took a sugar bowl and a rose cut from the lock garden and sat on the towpath until the water moved. On the ninth night a woman rose out of the cut with reed in her hair and a silver web laid across her forehead. Her face was a skull painted with lace, and her eyes were only lamplight.

"He is mine until the rose drops its last petal," she said. "Bring me sugar, then, and I will bring you the rose." Maud poured the sugar on the water and laid the rose beside it, and the river took both without a ripple. Every morning after that she found a single petal on the towpath, dry and grey, and every morning Ned's boots stood a little wetter by the stove.

On the last petal she went down to the bank before light. The web hung across the water like a sail. Ned stood on the far side, dripping, and called her name as if he had only been away at the lock. Maud did not cross to him. She lifted his coat from the hook, wrapped the last petal inside it, and threw the bundle to the water, and the river, which had never once been fair, kept its word.