Pencil sketch of a woman with curled hair and closed eyes holding an ornate hand mirror, with a pearl necklace and leaves in the background.

Woman with hand mirror and pearls sketch

Black and grey · Flash

A pencil drawing of a woman with voluminous curled hair, her eyes closed and head tilted, one hand raised to her hair. She holds an ornate hand mirror with swirling filigree detail, and wears a pearl necklace over a high-necked top. Fine, loose linework and soft shading are shown on a purple-tinted background with faint leaf outlines.

Woman Curly hair Leaves Portrait Sketch Filigree

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mirror came to me in a biscuit tin, wrapped in a tea towel gone the colour of weak tea. Mrs Oddie's nephew had cleared the cottage after the flood and said she'd always kept it face down on the windowsill. I turned it over under the lamp. The back was a swirl of silver filigree, scrolls curling into one another like frost ferns, and at its centre sat a small round setting where a stone had once been. Only a pale ghost of it remained.

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Working on it takes patience. I soak the silver in warm water with a little soap, pick the black tarnish out with a bamboo stick, and try not to snap the finest tendrils. On Tuesday I found a pressed leaf wedged behind the glass, brown as a bay leaf and brittle as pastry. Someone had tucked it there on purpose. Beside it lay a loop of pearls on yellowed silk, the knot gone soft with age, the pearls still lustrous when I rubbed one on my sleeve.

The nephew rang on Thursday asking whether it was worth anything. I told him the silver was worth little but the workmanship a great deal, and the pearls, if they were real, more than he'd expect. He asked about the stone. I said I didn't think there had ever been a stone, only a space where someone had meant to put one.

I've restrung the pearls on fresh silk and laid them in the tin beside the mirror. Tomorrow I'll polish the glass until it throws back the lamp. Whoever kept that windowsill must have checked her reflection often enough to wear the back smooth. I'd like to think she was waiting for something worth looking at.