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.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ501VCEtVnT
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.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcbOzEzueFT
He dreams.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMiVNUST1Mn
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaKa2KwKBUn
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ0bDNT4qme
On the steps.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZuRbMKUtyN
Again.
He touches it.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOSOO682ZWz
His hand shakes.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy97Nsfx7xW
Why?
He dreams.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5gTsqpKTui
A lantern-lit sky.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrwgZKmGVnf
A girl’s laughter.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡONCZ3afgth
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAy0JGvl3yF
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq3vHKWNRER
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs3Mgo9picP
The attic is locked.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaGAkFAjb2J
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRLKFeY8MNA
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSOQ9hq7tz1
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsvCg7a0fWr
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.206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe7lnJNQuP8
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 know206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡopqUNgpjCr
she was never truly forgotten.
