Traditional flash cluster on a torso

The flash sheet came back from the printers on Tuesday with the coffin printed upside down, which Mr Corrigan says is lucky and I say is a sin against the trade. He keeps the whole set in a biscuit tin under the counter of the shop on Pelham Lane, and when the rain stopped on Thursday he let me carry it up to the back room where the gas ring hisses and the window looks straight down on the goods yard. I have been copying the designs by lamplight ever since, the way Grandfather taught us, one line at a time until my wrist aches.

There is a cat's head with its ears laid flat, a snake that has come up out of the corner of the page as if it is looking for a way out, a pair of lips drawn back over a row of teeth with a dagger slid between them, and a small heart tucked in beside the rest. The coffin has RIP stamped across its lid in letters so square they could be cut from tin. Corrigan says the trick is to keep the black solid and let the white do the talking. The eye with the stars beneath it is mine. Nobody else would think to draw an eye looking up at a sky with only a handful of stars, each one the size of a farthing.

Last night a sailor climbed the stairs asking for a heart with a name on it, and Corrigan sent him down again with a flat refusal and a cup of tea. I stood at the window and watched the lamps come on along the quay. The sailor stopped under the streetlight, looked back up at our window for a long moment, and then walked off towards the river with his hands in his pockets.

I have kept the sketch of the snake for myself. Come up on Saturday and I will show you where the dagger goes.

Your loving sister, May