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.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJvkOrtsOuB
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.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVQ19ED6IEd
He dreams.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0NhzvE2SdE
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyhIkb2AUJA
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQEOumQflPZ
On the steps.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡybhczvDzZb
Again.
He touches it.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC2ijmi12qp
His hand shakes.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7DIVHOozX3
Why?
He dreams.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwFXP97oD6W
A lantern-lit sky.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhnIySsf5bq
A girl’s laughter.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE95VwQRlYR
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNW5b2He3i6
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo56Qb6pmTN
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHrBn05Iwu6
The attic is locked.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdVaqLzcA36
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIJd4DlB3GO
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVyshvyJ5bF
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhY35shJyIP
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.86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQTz0Qo9RRO
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 know86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcFOlIYoGYK
she was never truly forgotten.
