Black ink dreamcatcher tattoo pair with feathers running down the outer thigh, shown in a sepia-toned photo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two dreamcatchers and feathers on a thigh

Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

Two dreamcatchers are stacked vertically down the side of the thigh, each with a flower-like centre, beaded hoop detail and hanging feathers. Fine dark linework and soft shading give the rings and feathers depth, with a few loose strands and beads trailing between them. The photo has a warm sepia cast, and the tattoo fills most of the frame against a patterned wall and a chair at the edge.

Thigh Dreamcatcher Feather Flower Bead

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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You asked whether the new lodger in number seven is worth the extra shilling a week, and I can tell you he is. Mr Abel Quarrie arrived on the Tuesday train with a canvas bag of willow switches and a tin of waxed thread, and by Thursday every sill on the top landing had a hoop on it. He bends the willow into rings, binds them tight, then strings them with cord and a bead every inch or so. Mrs Pellow from the bakery swears he is a fortune teller. I think he just cannot sit still.

The middle of each ring he fills with a flower of fine spokes, eight petals, neat as a pressed dahlia, and he will not be hurried over them. He calls them the web's rose. The feathers he collects from the promenade railings, where the gulls leave them after the storms, and he sorts them by colour on a tea towel like a man laying out cards. Last Sunday I found him on the back step with a torch, trying to see whether the mesh would catch the moths or only the dust. He said the moths were a matter for the sea.

Yesterday I took up his clean sheets and found a third hoop on my own dresser, smaller than the others, with a single grey feather knotted at the bottom. There was no note. Mr Quarrie was down on the sands with his easel and a bucket of weed, and when I asked him, he only shrugged and said the big ones were for keeping things out and the small ones were for letting them go.

I have left the bottom window open tonight so the draught can find the cords. The beads knock together softly all night, and by morning there is salt on everything. Come up at Easter. You can have the room beside his, and I will keep the teapot warm.

Yours, Ada