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.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFEBNt6s7QM
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.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI619adDhSa
He dreams.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR8zmRyGYEj
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0UXOXoA4dZ
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWn8dIqKzyc
On the steps.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqx4vWXGZBh
Again.
He touches it.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlyRBZENeO7
His hand shakes.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz3OT88QMHt
Why?
He dreams.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3sUX5Zmg7S
A lantern-lit sky.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhp4iXrP2rX
A girl’s laughter.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1dyDnGSD8b
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdIw9iK873U
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfVnMfwAYOD
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe2gsWJmXhz
The attic is locked.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuzt0Ad9kwy
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMJRPNPlOtq
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOA47Qsh3fu
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPyh922x5Yj
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.141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqY0np7R6Ns
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 know141Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmpesmGn7Ea
she was never truly forgotten.
and then Add to home screen.