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.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmesX2gek7f
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.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqFXfOtPMRA
He dreams.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZ4swEK54f
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTQb7OaF0Ch
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWvtety7JPC
On the steps.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4SPxoVetc5
Again.
He touches it.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJWQxeNUH8I
His hand shakes.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡygAkGvJDE5
Why?
He dreams.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmS2afrcexu
A lantern-lit sky.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFDF4KMOw6P
A girl’s laughter.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBhe7stAYoW
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkZedsUeZnM
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzXaSzC46IW
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZIyxLT6tFx
The attic is locked.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV5lfiX1lXa
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0nsE2IqHmg
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI1bnq5eSmW
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGoJZmVCgBz
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.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn2ZDIjqoZM
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 know50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTyhkrrqqwJ
she was never truly forgotten.
and then Add to home screen.