Tribal gecko tattoo design

The gecko came back to the kitchen wall the night after the first hard frost, which Mrs Aske says means the wood is turning and every creature that lives in it is looking for a warm place. I told her geckos don't live in Ashdown, they're for the hot countries you keep sending postcards from. She just tapped the spoon on the sill and said the forest doesn't read postcards.

It sat above the dresser for three nights, splayed flat against the lime plaster, its head curled round like a fiddlehead fern. Its tail ran down the wall in a thin dark line and finished in a little coil, as if it had been wound up and forgotten. When the rain came off the beech trees and beaded on the window, the drops were the same shape as the black dots on its legs. I stood there with the lamp and counted them. Eleven on the left, twelve on the right. I haven't told anyone the number yet.

Yesterday the woodcutters brought in the last of the Gilmore oak, and the gecko was gone from the wall, leaving nothing but a clean rectangle where the soot hadn't reached. Mrs Aske says that means it went up the lane into the trees to wait out the winter in the roots. I think it went to find you, since you always did run toward whatever had the most tail.

Come home at Candlemas if you can. The dresser needs moving and I'd like a witness when I do.

Your sister, Nell