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long ago had likely been a field and a garden. Subsistence farming, she thought, and it had failed. Not surprising out here in the middle of nowhere.
    “I think I can make out a kind of track over there leading out of the clearing,” Sam said. “If so, we’re in business. It must lead to a settlement somewhere. But tonight…”
    “We need a shelter.”
    Not that she could see anything resembling one. There were the remains of a small log cabin and an adjacent outbuilding at one side of the clearing, but they offered no shelter. Their roofs had collapsed long ago, and their walls threatened to soon follow, leaving both structures wide open to the elements.
    “Has to be something we can use,” Sam said. “Let’s look for it.”
    The light was fast leaving them as they crossed the clearing, but Sam seemed to have the eyes of an owl. He found that something near the cabin.
    “What is it?” Eve wondered, peering through the twilight at a snow-covered mound.
    “I’m betting it’s a root cellar.”
    He was right. There were crude stone steps leading down to a plank door that was still intact.
    “Better let me go first,” he said, his booted foot scrubbing aside the snow piled on the steps as he descended to the door. “Could be some unfriendly animal has taken up residence down there.”
    Not an impossibility, Eve thought, since the door at the bottom of the steps was ajar by a few inches. The door was sagging, which meant Sam had to put his shoulder to it to scrape it open. Eve waited nervously at the top of the steps as, head lowered for what was presumably a low ceiling, he disappeared into the cellar. Seconds later she heard his muffled curse.
    “What is it? What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing. I just knocked my head against something hanging from a hook in the ceiling.”
    Great. As if he needed another lump on his head.
    “Hey, I think it’s a lantern. And it still has oil in it. There’s a tin of safety matches, too, on a ledge just below it.”
    It had to be black down there. How could he possibly make out anything?
    “Let’s see if they still work.”
    They did. A moment later the lantern bloomed with light that glowed through the open door.
    “Come on down,” he urged.
    Eve joined him in the root cellar. The light of the lantern that Sam had placed on an overturned crate revealed a small room with a hard-packed earthen floor, the low ceiling she had anticipated and stone walls against which were ranged wooden shelves.
    Sam was pleased with his find. “It’s okay, huh? Belowground like this, and with that mound over it, the temperature down here must never dip below freezing. The lantern puts out some warmth, too.”
    “Home never looked better,” Eve agreed.
    Sam found an abandoned can in one corner. He took it outside to fill with snow, which he intended to melt over the heat of the oil lantern. By the time he returned, Eve had placed two of the wide, loose shelves on the floor to serve as seats for them.
    “Cozy, right?” Sam asked a short while later as they sat side by side on the boards, legs outstretched.
    Eve couldn’t deny, with the door now tightly shut and keeping out the worst of the cold, that the cellar made a snug refuge for them. The snow had melted in the can. He passed it to her. She drank from it and handed the can back to him. It tasted flat, but it was water. She was grateful for that.
    “Too bad,” Sam said after satisfying his own thirst, “they didn’t leave any food behind on those shelves. Not that it would be any good by now.”
    “You hungry? I am, too, so…” Opening her shoulder bag, Eve produced two granola bars from its depth. “Like the Girl Scouts, I believe in coming prepared. Or is it the Boy Scouts? Doesn’t matter.”
    She extended one of the bars toward him. Sam grabbed it with a heartfelt “Angel, you are an angel.” He started to tear off the wrapper and then stopped. “This is no good.”
    “Why? What are you thinking?”
    “If we eat both of