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.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBoAwmQuBtC
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.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnLIzHWWZZB
He dreams.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqi9eQ5vCY3
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEhEVKCoY4B
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ1WZppOnjj
On the steps.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6TDRtYNWRl
Again.
He touches it.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHFlV7eH3F
His hand shakes.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL80HObiK96
Why?
He dreams.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Z4v4rQrSi
A lantern-lit sky.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaLLi2sCPkT
A girl’s laughter.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdQq27p9aOq
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2pOOjc0we4
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEcr0zGgVJ4
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8VoBQcAtnD
The attic is locked.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXKBpjOxN4O
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8aUTUF7kMo
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3z3xfGDTWF
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgX1sr97YGy
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.41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqevGKb3mD0
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 know41Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQjmH2vBpPK
she was never truly forgotten.
and then Add to home screen.