Colour tattoo of three doll-like girls with large eyes, hearts and a butterfly, in black linework with green and red ink, on a limb.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three doll-like girls with hearts and flowers

Other · Mixed · Photo

Three stylised doll-like girls stand side by side, one in a checked dress and tutu, one with a green plait and flower, and one partly hidden at the left edge. Small pink hearts and a butterfly on a dress add accents. The bold black outlines are softened by grey shading and dotted texture on the dresses, and the skin is lightly coloured in greens and reds.

Other Doll Girl Heart Flower Butterfly

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Before the baker's lamp was lit, the three dolls on the high shelf above the proving drawers woke and counted the loaves. Ada, who wore the checked skirt and the tutu she had never once been allowed to dance in, counted first, because she could not stop herself. Nell, with the green plait pinned by a daisy, counted second and got it wrong on purpose. The smallest, Bett, who had only a butterfly on her dress to recommend her, watched the window.

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The bakery belonged to Mr Harrow Pyle, who had carved them from a sycamore off-cut the winter his daughter went to sea. He painted their cheeks pink so they would look less like grief. Every morning he set them up on the shelf with a lump of dough between them, as if they were a row of bakers' ghosts. The dolls had never been told this was a kindness, but they knew the flour on their hems was real.

One night in February the rye ran low, and Mr Pyle fell asleep in his chair with his boots on. Ada climbed down the flour bins by way of the bread peel. Nell held the lamp, and Bett, the lightest, carried the last of the cinnamon up the ladder in her teeth. They kneaded until their painted arms ached and shaped the dough into small hearts, though none of them knew what a heart was for. They only knew the baker's daughter had once cried over a birthday cake that did not come.

At first light Mr Pyle found eleven hearts on the tray, dusted with sugar, and three small footprints in the rye. He did not eat them. He set them on the counter with a card reading Free to whoever comes in before the bell. By seven the queue reached the chemist's. Back on their shelf and stiff as ever, the dolls agreed it had been good work, and Ada said nothing about the tutu, grey with flour now, which she decided was the finest thing she owned.