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.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDUjPzgyn8s
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.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡycVA82IWGT
He dreams.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiZj3lNLEmC
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp4ttNvOeLx
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVaqWFSzTqO
On the steps.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6UURnVcpok
Again.
He touches it.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsR8hDwn5uh
His hand shakes.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOG0bKOMXY
Why?
He dreams.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoCoB9w7M5T
A lantern-lit sky.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLSIf5SLdQs
A girl’s laughter.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡATx0sItq5b
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLuYKbLimAT
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuRhjSY4Sdg
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXzx3aVxkKI
The attic is locked.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7W3dkdgLs2
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtNzd4fahhK
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJNX2u4pbE
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGXUzqplWmy
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.97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Ww7BsHZvd
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 know97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH7vZOuxC6U
she was never truly forgotten.
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