As the woman showed him around the village, Serrin became uneasy. Much of the place had sunk halfunderwater because of the rise in the fen waters created by decades of polar thaw. Some families lived on the top floors of three-story buildings whose lower levels had been lost to the waters, and the whole of which were threatening to sink into the marsh. This barren land offered little in the way of building materials, but a few wooden houses looked relatively recent. He was utterly baffled when they came upon a grove of young willows on one isolated shallow hillock.