Erin gave him an arch look. “Thank you, Professor Sokolov.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m serious.”

“And I’m not stupid.”

“Jury’s out on that,” Rafe muttered as she descended the stairs of the closest structure, her flashlight lifted over her head, angled down.

She turned to glare at him before disappearing through the doorway. Within thirty seconds she was backing out, pocketing her flashlight. “Empty,” she said when she rejoined him. “But extensive. There are separate rooms inside. At least three in that one—what looked like two bedrooms and an open sitting room. If we walked to the back side of these homes, we’d see the hole for what was probably a stovepipe. There were gouges in the door frames, like there used to be hinges there. I think you’re right that they took the doors with them.”

“Toilet facilities?” Rafe asked.

“Not in that one, although one of the rooms might have had an outhouse-type hole. I didn’t get that far. But there doesn’t appear to be plumbing. Or people.”

“No tire treads in the snow, no footprints. I think it’s okay for Mercy to take a look around.”

“I’ll go get her,” Erin offered. “This snow isn’t easy to walk in.”

Rafe wanted to protest—I can do it!—but she was right. The snow was a bitch and his cane kept sliding when it hit the layer of ice beneath the most recent accumulation. “Thank you.”

A minute later, Mercy and Sasha were at his side. “This isn’t Eden,” Mercy said. “Or at least not the way I remember it.”

“How so?” Erin asked.

“We had houses,” she said. “Actual houses, made of wood, with four walls and shingled roofs. The Founding Elders had really nice houses, but these all look the same. And this is smaller than I remember. There are how many structures here?”

“Twenty-six,” Erin answered.

“We had at least forty.” She went silent, turning in a circle to study the abandoned settlement, much as Erin had done, but her expression was distant, clearly lost in memory.

“So Eden is shrinking in numbers?” Rafe asked, and she blinked, her eyes refocusing.

“I guess so. The layout . . . it’s familiar. This was the common area. Houses ringed the perimeter, just like these huts. Shared spaces were at two, six, and ten o’clock. Most families had cookstoves for small meals and general heating, but that hut at two o’clock would have been the shared cooking facilities for larger meals like turkey, wild boar, or deer. The hut at ten o’clock was the clinic. Six o’clock was the school.” She walked to a slight bowl-shaped depression in the ground. It measured about six feet in diameter. “Fire pit.” She pointed to the largest structure at twelve o’clock. “The church. Pastor’s home was next door. Outhouses used to be behind each home. I don’t see that here, but they could be hidden behind the huts. Can we walk beyond the ring?”

“I don’t see why not,” Erin said. “What are you looking for?”