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.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDGBvEMOx8Q
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.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtNQUq9ybqd
He dreams.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8tIzPINW2H
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnNBEuBRubm
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfzS5coOT63
On the steps.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA0AUq5bTt4
Again.
He touches it.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCSuNyNqEf
His hand shakes.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkLu91T36sG
Why?
He dreams.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF5DJXPrpu2
A lantern-lit sky.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu4E96p0cgw
A girl’s laughter.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1cgT9ZfXqs
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi9JvlWUO8b
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVPRgna998K
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3MddcJwMg2
The attic is locked.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9wj6xUypeK
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWYZfjJ48Sf
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNsISSmqe9G
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgSZiIgYRsM
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.212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYG4xrQPM2S
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 know212Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtKrlThrJ8M
she was never truly forgotten.
