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.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWTQVRTte4V
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.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbLkliBryr9
He dreams.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPfwpZgXybo
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ffz2IdP51
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡciyJWtfR5a
On the steps.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK8QFnLISfG
Again.
He touches it.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXRMsQVgsiN
His hand shakes.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtDPkeHZDt6
Why?
He dreams.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqt1BfC7BvO
A lantern-lit sky.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ59beujLddN
A girl’s laughter.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkHokDXEAbw
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIqUCjAgm1Y
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhUuOQSuFVL
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDhEljLDVSl
The attic is locked.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6fFm1DWeMn
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnWzHFqBmlP
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEMwZc2Ha1w
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAfl5lOSRwC
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.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT22cakyeuE
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 know65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA3HeeOyF43
she was never truly forgotten.
and then Add to home screen.