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.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBvdLKQGqEI
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.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFRz7B5NchI
He dreams.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRKFsCp17mD
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqAFWDdkMv4
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3WjixK9GAz
On the steps.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKA3Ohufm0L
Again.
He touches it.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡamuV0o4IMv
His hand shakes.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Nr0LxfQDu
Why?
He dreams.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaGNi2p8Zk8
A lantern-lit sky.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡam7LHWJi1O
A girl’s laughter.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRplPZhsfHD
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyuM7j4dkPv
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcMrHkQJ6Qz
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLU8QTVbnPu
The attic is locked.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4J1xzdzjsB
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡggFYQFH3Oj
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhathO6Rasy
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoQrV6XXtIe
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.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡURxIXJ2h7o
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 know159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJw21HuiXAF
she was never truly forgotten.
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