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.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdFIeCd1End
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.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx30pMD1fBW
He dreams.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2y3n3mXjYp
He forgets to question why.
A diary. Torn pages.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlbxClk87L3
A note in a stranger’s handwriting.
A yellow flower.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrLILq5NRpz
On the steps.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhM3f7ALZ1O
Again.
He touches it.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBtVzktyPFQ
His hand shakes.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg2JAELHIwD
Why?
He dreams.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHC0IgwHh4O
A lantern-lit sky.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ82nnMFDRIW
A girl’s laughter.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡioHAYFGWAv
His name in her mouth like it belonged there.
Marigold.
He wakes.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoOJAykzL3y
He forgets again.
The house in the hills has no door, but he knows it’s his.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeOskEriLAc
There’s music on the record player that skips every seventh bar.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc6g1FAKpav
The attic is locked.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6QdcxPOXOH
The key is under a painting, signed “M.”
He doesn’t remember her.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ0XTByyGE6
But he misses her anyway.
He runs his hand over the name in the wood:100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTSQT0h9li
Aime + M.
His knees go weak.
And then—100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYbrtfVtx6g
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.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdT2Bq3VMNV
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 know100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzewYcRtF2J
she was never truly forgotten.
and then Add to home screen.