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.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiCwq5l5XsL
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.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTSrvUNHCLK
He dreams.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF5pzwb56vo
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTNgNGCC1QL
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl2kJKU7BJm
On the steps.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7D5RHXRyTp
Again.
He touches it.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxYc6CNsia5
His hand shakes.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzQTwDzEtU
Why?
He dreams.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡohUnsFyygu
A lantern-lit sky.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNObvQBuk4K
A girl’s laughter.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCeauWgFqex
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFcDdJZKi7J
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlMv2zeaAzQ
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3f2LS2pkeM
The attic is locked.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡufnUFPKCVH
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrkPicUOEnK
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLByqPSvEO
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLtlGVTyrd4
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.25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5PmDgGHl0x
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 know25Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWzwH0Hsb0D
she was never truly forgotten.
