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.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡswcRGnYtUZ
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.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9sjBmbQb1D
He dreams.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMmR8CPxRVD
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRRKmwhqMZ6
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBGTAfsmYL5
On the steps.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ39vPxbbonA
Again.
He touches it.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLgFzcC46G4
His hand shakes.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhCFQF5A1ju
Why?
He dreams.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb57cERDfST
A lantern-lit sky.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbAOxy2d0Rj
A girl’s laughter.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ76fD2RdR8A
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfHK0fto8qg
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLblfx5kz53
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhVyiAAfKaw
The attic is locked.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHzd6udY2TZ
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQAXuJOoFu
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCFxocV38PB
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrJclqch6YD
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.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡezZkMgeH3t
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 know41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaAP2JOjyev
she was never truly forgotten.
