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.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoIjWuzbGoU
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.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYw7xPg4xGm
He dreams.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEs2kQsOo6z
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLTEnHYNAXC
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuhN6uQq6Ke
On the steps.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaudzoLJNqs
Again.
He touches it.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW2CZabe2iC
His hand shakes.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZplHZG1esi
Why?
He dreams.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQvvbkThoLt
A lantern-lit sky.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzMjpJ05aLv
A girl’s laughter.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJSwvAYzus7
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSAtl5o7DgL
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqXKlnrXPm8
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7KA0A7UPTC
The attic is locked.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLMelxumE9r
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXBrUXk5ZtV
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqSvYnYMG4w
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5LNxWiqF4S
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.123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJbeQoiEAKO
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 know123Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBIG7nCBQxP
she was never truly forgotten.
