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.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOfPSqafrR2
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.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXWLK8SGi54
He dreams.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡphLHZvDj3d
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGO6ITUaC4p
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn0pEcEKjcI
On the steps.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnehC6x0E5v
Again.
He touches it.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbHEsFiO0nS
His hand shakes.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxXDJ49Qx6d
Why?
He dreams.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡail3QbN9zw
A lantern-lit sky.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr4WbA38y1C
A girl’s laughter.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpL5xO71aZZ
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNMzcM0zKDk
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVh4l93zwwx
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Qo6s55bC2
The attic is locked.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL7nmXASFYA
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWr1W1EYo4Q
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Rhtmtn2cf
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUfslgEJ9wH
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.55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdm8L5WLTWn
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 know55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYLeIsE4XOR
she was never truly forgotten.
