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.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRmrb5iVjP1
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.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2aDgpEGsbK
He dreams.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhyH9LZFZoy
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡunk6QknQly
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXYjTaPX0bQ
On the steps.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlbYVPgA2Ub
Again.
He touches it.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡumejIa9agN
His hand shakes.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUmc5Ykwkdy
Why?
He dreams.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZjYZ2ZJbzw
A lantern-lit sky.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB8Q28rUEpi
A girl’s laughter.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtcUBx7R505
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd6QRAqCxtI
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ9O78YkHA1
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGSZiqKbmCh
The attic is locked.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe74QEPx8j5
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmpJFOVP4UP
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2ihCCTj1LY
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxyPZo32b5R
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.147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUYP5U5yPty
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 know147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ92WuvVYV7z
she was never truly forgotten.
