Black ink drawing of a treble clef with a small cross running through its centre and swirling flourishes, shown as a tattoo design on plain grey paper.

Treble clef with a cross design

Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of a treble clef with a small upright cross set inside its central curve. Thin, sweeping flourishes wrap around the clef and finish in a filled circle at the base. The drawing is shown in black on a plain grey background with no body part visible.

Treble clef Cross Music Swirl Flourish

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had the copying of the choirbook, but his eyes had gone from thirty winters of candle smoke. When the great antiphoner cracked along its spine and the notes of the Easter sequence began to run off the page like rain, the abbot sent for the boy from the mill instead. Tobin could not read a letter, but he could hum back any tune after hearing it once, and that was enough.

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Every evening Tobin sat on the cold step of the scriptorium and sang while Anselm ruled the staves. Where the melody climbed, the boy's hand lifted from his knee; where it fell, his hand dropped. The old monk drew the clef in one long stroke, the way his own master had taught him. Then, because the boy asked, he set a small upright cross in its heart, so the notes would have something to stand on. The loops and trailing lines he let run wild, like a voice going up over the rafters and not coming down again.

On the feast of the Annunciation the book was finished, and the choir sang from it for the first time. Tobin stood at the back, too shy to sing aloud, and heard the old phrases come out clean and bright. Anselm stayed at the lectern with his hands folded. When the last amen had faded, he opened the book to the first page and found, beside the clef, a second cross scratched into the margin with a thumbnail, its lines still a little crooked. He did not rub it out. He only turned the leaf and let the boy see it.