Watercolour feather tattoo in purple, pink and blue with black birds rising from the shoulder, shown on an upper arm from two angles.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Watercolour feather with birds on upper arm

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

Two photographs show a large feather tattoo running down the outer upper arm, with a black feather outline and a soft wash of purple, pink and blue behind it. A flock of small black birds flies off the top of the shoulder. The shading is loose and painterly, with splashes of colour fading at the edges, and the second photo shows the same piece from a side angle.

Upper arm Shoulder Feather Bird Watercolour

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dearest Ada, the rooks came back to the elm behind the chapel on Tuesday, all at once, the way they do when the frost lifts, and I stood in the lane with the washing basket until my fingers went numb. Mr Pryce says a flock that leaves in a hurry and returns in a hurry has been frightened by something in the woods. I told him the only thing frightening anybody in the woods is your brother, who has slept in the hayloft since you left and insists he is hunting a wolf that was never there.

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I found the feather on the stile path yesterday morning. It is long and grey, with a band of blue at the tip that goes violet wherever the light catches it. I have been trying to match it. I soaked a quill in elderberry juice and bluebell water and painted what the sky did over the Hollow last night, bruise-coloured first, then rose, then a blue so thin you could see the first stars through it. Mrs Haddon watched me from her gate and asked whether I had taken up religion. I said only the sort that needs a good light.

At dusk the rooks went up off the elm in one black spill and wheeled over the hedge toward the forest. I counted them, as I always do, and got to forty-one before they broke apart over the oaks. One stayed behind on the top branch, not moving, and I watched it until the lamp in the chapel porch was lit and I could no longer tell it from the bark.

I am enclosing the feather, pressed flat in a page of the almanac, so you can see the colours for yourself. Do not let the post man sit on it. I had to. Come home before the rooks decide the village is theirs, and bring that boy's wolf with you so I can see it for myself. Your loving sister, Nell.