I see, little Olive, if you really want to learn about your home, about this little town, you have to understand the Ryers. Or, more specifically, the rise and fall of the family Ryer. This story’s been told for generations, so I’m fairly certain it’s all false, but where’s the fun of a true story. This one’s an important lie, too. Here’s how I heard it, when I was a kid.
The Ryers, they’re one of the original settlers of this place. The town was founded by a bunch of crazy people who wanted to prove the rest of the world wrong. People said this particular pass through the Rockies was pointless, and would be taking them to the completely wrong part of California. They were told that there was no use in the trip. When they never made it to the west coast, everyone else instantly assumed they had been right, that the founders had failed. But in truth the six families who’d travelled north together had come upon a gold mine. Literally. They settled around the mine, and dug into the vein. The town was founded. That was the beginning.
The town grew like any other mining town. Quick expansion meant that soon all that land the families split among themselves when they initially showed up was covered in a town, complete with houses, a church, a marketplace, a bar. Then, the mine dried up. The families poorly tried to keep the fact covered up, but there were leaks everywhere. A secret of that magnitude doesn’t stay secret, no matter how hard people push. Rumor held that the Johnsons and the Ryers had been behind the leak, working together to do something, but more likely it was some miner who noticed the ore they were bringing up wasn’t near as good as it had been originally. Whatever the cause, the mine being near dry became known throughout the town. Soon enough, it was as empty as it had been when the families first moved there. The families were bigger, had more branches and what not, but it was still only the initial six family trees.
The six couldn’t move. They owned the land, didn’t have a home anywhere else. Beyond that, they wouldn’t be able to sell the land surrounding a barren mine to anyone. So, they took to subsistence farming. The soil where the old town had been, around the old mine, was fairly inarable, and they began the long process of expanding the family homes into massive, sprawling mansions. Outside the mansion areas, only around four miles away, there was perfectly arable land. Not amazing farmland, but no one had set up there yet and they only needed to support small farms. What is understood generally is that the next step was almost entirely the Ryers’ fault.
The Ryers saw the six small family farms and realized that none of them were farmers. Moreover, they were all really bad at it. So, a member of the family, Ken Ryer, went out to the train station south of Serendipity. Outside the station, he approached a family of poor farmers working on someone else’s land. He gave them a simple offer: Leave this farm with the tools, he’d pay off the father’s debts.
The farmer asked him what the catch was. This man had been a slave, then a sharecropper. He knew offers like Ryer’s always came with an underhanded side.
Ryer explained to the farmers that they had a large plot of unowned land that he and his family friends were trying to farm, and succeeding barely. He asked the farmer to use some of that land, to help support and grow a community up in the valley.
Ken, or his younger cousin Vince, depending on who the storyteller thinks really ran the family, was thinking ahead. After the mine went dry, especially with the rumors about their family being involved in the leak, the Ryers were on thin ice, faily powerless in that town. Everyone was against them save the Johnsons, who stood by and watched their fall from grace, not wanting to seem too close. After that leak on the mine’s status, the Ryers were treated like lepers, pariahs only to be dealt with in passing when absolutely necessary. They needed some new blood in town, people who liked and respected them, and would prove themselves useful enough that the founding families couldn’t simply turn them away.
Their plan went off without a hitch. The family of farmers were more than happy to accept the strange gentleman’s charity. Ken went to the owners of the tools they were leasing and paid off the debts that the farm had accrued over the years of operation. Then, he led the farmers back to Serendipity. They claimed a larger plot of the farmland, and they got to work on it. Come harvest season, the farmers had excess food, and helped out the initial families, all of whom were short for the winter. They asked the Ryers if they could invite some people they knew who worked with livestock. The Ryers accepted happily, and went so far as to offer funding for them to help with their coming.
Soon enough, other people heard of this utopia, a place where the soil was alright, the people shared wealth and food, and everyone was generally pleasant to be around. It was a town built up on the outskirts of a ghost town. And that town grew quickly. Soon enough, they were as large as the families who had been there for a generation, soon after that, they were even larger, large enough that they couldn’t be ignored. The village council was, at the time, comprised of a patriarch representing each of the six families. That worked fine when the village was the extended families. But it was no longer the case. The village now had villagers, outsiders, townies, living in numbers unlike ever before. And, even more importantly, these weren’t employees, or leasing land from the families. These were people with as much of a right to govern the place as the initial families themselves had.
The families were afraid and baffled. How could they placate the masses without losing power. Ken Ryer, now an old man, came forwards with an idea. They hold elections. This idea didn’t much suit the others, until he pointed out a key detail. See, the others lived in the town that had grown outside of Old Serendipity. The families, on the other hand, lived inside Old Serendipity. If they held equal elections based on the areas in the town, they could all keep their seats, and the residents of New Serendipity could feel included.
The Johnsons almost immediately signed aboard, as did the Clays. But others were more hesitant, especially the Pauls. The Pauls saw how those numbers would play out. Certainly, if it were demographics-based now they would be even, but as new people moved into town, there would be more townies than family. They offered a compromise. The council would announce a free election of five additional representatives to the town council, to represent the new people. They ensconced in the town codes that there are only ever 11 members of the town council, and the families would always have a measure of control. This proposal by the Pauls made sense to the others, and was ratified.
The next year, when elections for town council was officially held, the Ryers were ecstatic. They’d beaten the other families, they’d taken control of the council, of the town. Ken, or Vince for the conspiracy prone, not only held a seat, but the town itself loved their family. They were the family that had helped everyone settle in. They were the family that never seemed holier than thou, an attitude the older members of the others held consistently and well. They had risen back to the top.
The Ryers did not last long on top. By the second world war, their mastermind, be that Vince or Ken, had died, and they were just like the other families. Soon after, even those who remembered the times when Ken was the voice of the family were dead. June, 1973, the Ryers’ fall from grace had come to an end. They disappeared from Serendipity. No one even cared to track where they were headed when they left. The families never grew to like them, as the families of Serendipity hold a grudge like no one else. And without the guidance of a wise leader, the family lost the support of the townies as well. While they were used to the power that the families held, they were equally used to the families never being able to get themselves on the same page. Infighting among the six families was, and still is, as common as green grass, and so the townies knew they didn’t need to grovel to them. After the Ryers left, there was a vacant seat. A townie politician came up with a compromise. It wouldn’t be elected, like the five townies, but it wouldn’t be assigned by the families, like the patriarchs. The politician wrote into the code an amendment, stating that while no Ryer lived within the borders of Serendipity, their seat would be held by the eldest individual in town, be that a townie or a family-member.
I know what you’re wondering, little one. Why, Frank, you think, why is that the most important story about Serendipity? For one, it explains our history. While everyone in town, especially people who were born here, will tell you that Serendipity is a town founded on secrets, built up by lies, et cetera, et cetera, that isn’t the truth. Trying to hold secrets is something that the town has always failed at. Arguably, secrets are the death of the town, not its base. The town is built on schemes, on desperate maneuvers, on the backs of brilliant people intent on showing their brilliance. The Ryer’s leader of the turn of the century is certainly not the only example of a brilliant person trying to prove his brilliance through a desperate scheme. Heck, he’s not even the best example, per se. But his example also demonstrates the other, darker side of Serendipity. Without that brilliant mind forging forth, without desperation to drive their leader, the Ryer family fell as easily as they had risen. Because Serendipity has a long memory about sins, about grudges, about evils, but people don’t remember the good. Grudges are passed down, hatred is passed down, wicked deeds are passed down. You’ll know about this soon enough, what with your dad and mom. But no one passes down gifts beyond their names. No one passes down pleasantries. And no one even thinks to pass down friendships.
Oh, yeah, and the story also tells you just how weird, screwy, and factional the people you have to deal with can be. See, they heard a whisper of a rumor and excised an entire family. Then, when the family was needed, they were welcomed back. But it was done without forgetting that they were not really the same as the others. And when that family stopped being necessary, everyone else stopped caring. Since they hadn’t committed another evil like telling anyone anything, they weren’t cut out of the social politics of the world. Everyone just let them do their thing. When the family left, there was no attempt to find them, their mansion was left empty and uncared for. And yet, I can also tell you that if a Ryer walked up to any of the other mansion doors and announced themself, after the momentary shock of it, those crazy bastards would give them the land right back. Because they’re still one of the families, and those families stick together. Always. You’ll see eventually. Whether or not your mom wants to admit it, you’re one of them.
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