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.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQRwIv5sEII
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.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIUz9xUHGnO
He dreams.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxUS3RApJXV
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡih0O6FArGw
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡisWen0Pwmu
On the steps.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPnjW8fRQpU
Again.
He touches it.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbsMyVCTVqz
His hand shakes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXjWigNCYU4
Why?
He dreams.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv6mtrRD8f5
A lantern-lit sky.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyYpAsRZblO
A girl’s laughter.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKOAXD93U5Y
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqGGQWzSHoN
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRlHHFhdNyn
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB8g2S80FHm
The attic is locked.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEQh60Z3neA
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH1PV3sjOvI
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ81Jhgn6PRT
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq7M1aEovwf
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.85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrXSnNbyNWF
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 know85Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfl9jDkBHtK
she was never truly forgotten.
