Serendipity Springs was dying. Ask the people who lived there, and they would tell you. But no one remembered when everything that had been so good started to go so bad. See, the town’s history had been lost with time. History was forgotten as the newspaper closed and the library closed and businesses shut their doors for good. History trickled away as citizens fled on the railroad or down Main Street toward the interstate. History was set aside as the people who stayed struggled for survival. No, no one could remember when everything that had been so good started to go so bad. But they did know this: Things kept disappearing from Serendipity Springs. Here’s a list:

Catfish disappeared from Sunrise Lake.

Birds disappeared from overhead.

Grapefruit disappeared from the orchard.

Clouds disappeared from the sky.

Desert willow disappeared from Gold Mountain.

A great black bear disappeared from the foothills.

And the springs dried up and disappeared, too.

Imagine that: living in a place named for waters that no longer exist.

The people of Serendipity Springs (the ones who stayed, at least) shrugged off these disappearances. They got up each morning and went about their business.

Until the day four children disappeared.

That was too much.

Rather than going about their business, the people of Serendipity Springs began a desperate search for the missing kids. They searched the orchard and around the lake. They climbed Gold Mountain, looking under every rock and into every crevice. They scattered through the foothills, fanning out in lines and calling the children’s names. When they weren’t calling names, they asked questions:

“Where could they have gone?”

“Who could have taken them?”

“Will they ever return?”

And the most important question of all: “Why?” they asked. “Why did everything that was so good start to go so bad?”

Why? It’s a long story.

You could begin when the Tokalon people, the tribe that first settled what would become Serendipity Springs, fled their former homeland.

You could begin when Maxwell Chambers (The First) stumbled sick and dying onto Tokalon land.

You could begin when Maxwell Chambers (The First’s) grandson built a resort atop the springs themselves.

But it’s far easier to begin on Monday, when the dreaded pox returned.