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.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpu7Eg6jFws
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.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVAQMWhDaBl
He dreams.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtQ8OJ0OUyf
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdl6n41uUWm
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9z1BNrFkQo
On the steps.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4iWxCIa8o
Again.
He touches it.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh4wslJn3sC
His hand shakes.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXmJTqMZMhF
Why?
He dreams.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ393I1lFTht
A lantern-lit sky.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAWx0FODJZx
A girl’s laughter.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhnlrklzFZg
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlBeSAJlEzc
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcVPMf0sopI
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyv9i9h05JJ
The attic is locked.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5xjMpEOFDc
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ7kpERtAdH
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmtXxmgqq8d
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡct4S6ubtV7
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.87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡebti3ViVOI
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 know87Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSe2LJ3LDU7
she was never truly forgotten.
