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.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPcIK3r5YFC
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.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIBI6oN5Oc6
He dreams.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJfvt4RDD0d
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLyNGwbKZJf
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyWt5PqhTiy
On the steps.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDtwviT2xpL
Again.
He touches it.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnM4xGtR9qE
His hand shakes.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡevhZbHtA30
Why?
He dreams.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ7wWJsBXrW
A lantern-lit sky.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrOU7mnMKUV
A girl’s laughter.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2UBR4XbOD5
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbBf8QabuKn
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFWX0kRshhY
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsDkymyL3CO
The attic is locked.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkOA0DVZN0v
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAGyJJ7PhbL
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh1cDEAzPl2
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8X97C4n1vO
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.66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡutwX5WaJNN
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 know66Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ71mTbCuWdE
she was never truly forgotten.
