There is a place in the north where the fog never lifts.
It weaves through fir branches like silver thread, curls into the mouths of forgotten wells, and wraps itself around old stone cottages with moss-covered roofs. The air smells like wet ash and lilacs. There’s music in the wind—soft, slow, like a lullaby hummed underwater. The town is quiet, but not dead. Time moves differently here.
Aime arrives with aching in his bones and a whisper in his chest.
He doesn't know why he’s come. Only that he must have forgotten something important.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSoB2WgP68K
Something that waits for him.
The people here say little. They smile with familiarity, as if they know him. A shopkeeper gives him tea with chamomile and honey. A little girl hands him a yellow petal and says, “You dropped this.”
He walks.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFx2mW6Ofei
He dreams.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2VM7WhoKs4
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE8BXJg35vY
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoQgGcaFsE8
On the steps.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYd9zmdILDg
Again.
He touches it.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0l9JRwADUS
His hand shakes.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdnA9N5hs1J
Why?
He dreams.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8HX24UaHgz
A lantern-lit sky.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7EuVsy01G1
A girl’s laughter.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmujQNH5wWN
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxpjjUU6wPX
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTvGypnqqsh
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVSjUX0wA8C
The attic is locked.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe6XpexJA2z
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY8oWpHZyfa
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3ddDRwHttu
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmPrMtior40
he remembers everything.
He remembers Marigold’s hands, always warm from tea. The way she spoke his name like a promise, like a prayer. How she danced in the kitchen in her bare feet when the first snow fell. How she cried the night he said, “I wish I could forget everything that hurts.”
How she said, “Even me?”
How he didn’t answer.
He remembers Amarinthe’s price.
The fog that steals what you give it freely.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz1fVXAHxZf
The peace that comes only if you surrender what breaks you.
He remembers kneeling at the tree with bark like old scars. Whispering her name to its roots, begging it to take her away because the weight of losing her again would destroy him.
He remembers the price.
And he remembers that he chose it.
He runs now, every breath a blade.
He climbs the hill to the old tree that hums with a heartbeat not its own. Its branches are empty—except one.
A crown of wilting marigolds hangs there, trembling in the breeze.
He falls to his knees.
“I remember,” he says. “I remember everything. Please… give her back.”
The tree is silent.
The petals fall.
Aime lives on in Amarinthe, quiet and alone.
Every spring, when the fog lifts just enough to show the stars, the marigolds bloom again—though no one plants them.
He sits beneath the tree and sings a melody he once heard in a dream.
Not to bring her back.
But so she’ll know135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1G5pfHOhOD
she was never truly forgotten.
