by Gahan Wilson
There, there, did I frighten you? Now don't fret so or I won't go on with the story. That's better. That's my good little darlings, my bitsy snookumses.
Well, anyhow, when they were very young, just as young as you are, there was a great financial depression going on and all those funny people you see when you're out in the streets were losing their jobs in amazing numbers and looking more ragged and dirty by the day. Of course that was nothing near so bad as what was happening to people like ourselves, darlings, people who had real money to lose.
Hansel and Grettel's parents were starting to notice that there wasn't quite as much to spend as there used to be, and less all the time, and they realized they'd have to do something really serious about it if they wanted to avoid dipping into their capital, so, just like that, they decided to kill their children.
Now, now, don't look at me that way, my dears. It's only that sometimes grownups have to do things they'd really rather not. It's just the way it is, so stop fretting.
As it happened their plan didn't work out and the children lived because Hansel was very clever and left a little trail of stones which led them back to safety, you see. Grettel was most impressed, and of course their parents were fit to be tied. .
There was quite a to-do about it at the time—headlines in the tabloids and things like that—but of course they got it all wrong and thought it was a kidnapping or something like that because, of course, they were supposed to, darlings, and fortunately Hansel and Grettel's mother and father still did have quite a bit of money in spite of the depression, and considerable influence, and after they'd spent a year or two in Europe the whole thing had blown over and their lawyers told them they could come back home.
But it did something to Hansel and Grettel, it really did; it seriously affected their attitude toward their parents and perhaps embittered them just a little toward the world in general. Things never really did work out emotionally in the family after the episode, and it was finally arranged that when Hansel and Grettel finished with their education they would receive an enormous amount of money—for you see, darlings, that nasty depression thing had run its course and everyone was rich again—and go off on their own and nobody would ever again mention the unfortunate business about the attempted murder.
So they permanently left their parents and just traveled and traveled and traveled to their hearts' content, my darlings, and bought everything they wanted, and at first they rented things, chateaux in Switzerland and Mas in the south of France and golden palaces in Thailand and so on and so on, but then they settled on the grand hotels, darlings, because it seemed so much simpler that way. No permanent servants, you see, no fussing about with gardens and all that, and it was such a delightful game finding the very best suites and getting more service and attention from the management than anyone else in the place.
Of course the hoteliers loved them, simply adored them, couldn't get enough of them. They knew their season was made if Hansel and Grettel decided to spend it with them and they were very careful to see to it that they did have the best accommodations since they were of course aware that Hansel and Grettel always knew at once if they didn't have the very best accommodations, and they tried to anticipate their every wish, giving them all the little treats and extras they could possibly desire, and to dream up and arrange a few delightful surprises if it was at all possible.
But as time went by Hansel and Grettel began to realize they were staying at the same places again and again because, my darlings, the awful truth is there simply aren't that many really good grand hotels, some of them are not even all that grand if the truth be told, so eventually they very understandably began to fret at the lack of novelty.
They were brooding about it in the salon of the very best suite in the very best grand hotel in all of Belgium when Grettel suddenly brightened, gave the most exquisite little cry of joy, and sat up in her chaise longue.
"I know what," she cried happily, turning to her brother. "Let's discover little places no one tells anyone else about because they want to keep them for themselves—people will be ever so deliciously furious when they've found out that we've found them!''
"Oh, what fun!" said Hansel, gazing dreamily into space and imagining all those hilariously angry people as he neatly popped a new Astrakhan cigarette into his holder.
So they started a whole new game and what a perfectly delightful one it turned out to be, darlings; what a marvelous time they had tracking down lovely, tucked-away resorts which people had spent fortunes trying to keep hidden and ferreting out exquisite auberges whose very existences had been jealously kept secret by their wealthy clientele for generations.
And what a highly satisfactory sensation was always reliably caused when the regulars of these establishments arrived at their previously exclusive hideaways and not only discovered Hansel and Grettel there before them, but occupying the very best suites or cabins in the whole place! Oh, they were furious, my darlings, you can be sure of that. Wildly, uncontrollably furious. Though, of course, they did their very best not to show it.
Naturally locating these marvelous spots wasn't at all easy because, of course, considerable ingenuity had gone into keeping them secret, but Hansel and Grettel were both not only very clever, they were also, as I've told you, very beautiful and charming and they knew how to use these things to worm secrets out of positively anyone. And it goes without saying they had the money and the common sense to hire a number of highly efficient agents to help them in their continuing quest.
Well, it did turn out to be absolutely marvelous fun, my dears, just as Hansel had guessed it might—uncovering the most fabulous places and spoiling them for everybody else; finding more and more deeply concealed retreats as they and their agents grew increasingly skillful in sniffing them out, but never, not in their greediest, gaudiest dreams, did they imagine what a strange and magical place all of this would eventually lead them to!
They first learnt of it while staying at a tiny spa attractively blended into a Romanian hill village, in full possession of a sumptuous but amusingly peasanty cottage which had up to then always been occupied during the season by an industrialist and his fat wife, who were presently sulking in a definitely inferior sort of hut down the glen.
Hansel and Grettel's cottage had its very own mineral bath built into the rock grotto of its terrace and the two of them were gaily splashing about in it, enjoying a little soak, when the steward came by with a particularly interesting report which had been wired to them by one of their very best agents, a wealthy young American woman, Bobsie, who had taken the job as a kind of hobby. You can imagine their excitement, darlings, when they read that Bobsie had managed to track down a spectacularly thrilling new find and the more they read, the more their excitement grew.
Her first clue came, Bobsie told them, when she remembered hearing marvelous rumors as a little rich girl in Philadelphia about a wonderful secret castle somewhere in Europe to which only the very, very wealthy could go on account of its being so expensive, you see, and because none but the very best people were allowed.
Once she recalled this charming childhood tale she couldn't resist looking into it to see if there might be some truth to the story, after all. At first she could find absolutely no hard information to back it up and she began to suspect the whole thing might only have been a girlish fantasy her little friends had made up to amuse themselves on rainy afternoons, but then she started coming across tiny bits of really solid, grownup gossip about it here and there, and in the end her persistence and her connections won out—she was, after all, the daughter of a prominent senator and the heiress to several large newspapers from her mother's previous marriage—and the truth finally tumbled into her lap.
The place was located deep within the Black Forest and was without doubt the oldest and most distinguished retreat any of Hansel and Grettel's agents had come across so far. No one knew when it had actually been built—the report by no means dispelled the charming air of mystery
which enshrouded all of the establishment's history—but its tall towers with their conical roofs and its surrounding moat appeared to mark it as medieval, and since its general grandiosity left no doubt that some unknown regal hand had been involved in its construction, it had come to be known as King's Retreat, only in German of course, my darlings.
Royals of various nations were always associated with the place, the Hapsburgs primarily, but Bobsie had discovered that it was a favorite hideaway of many foreign blue bloods such as Queen Victoria's Duke of Clarence when he felt like being especially naughty on the Continent, and scads and scads of other sorts of famous people went there, darlings, whom you may learn about when you get a little older and interested in such things. Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald just loved the wine list, for example, and Hermann Goering simply adored the hunting.
Of course you can see that nothing would do but that Hansel and Grettel must go to King's Retreat as soon as possible, so Bobsie—and an awful lot of money—saw to it that the absolute best suite in the whole place would be ready and waiting for them the very next day. Off they went, darlings, leaving the rich industrialist and his fat wife to take over the Romanian cottage which, of course, would never again give them anywhere near as much pleasure as it had before.
Grettel fell in love with King's Retreat at her first sighting of it from their Rolls' window. It was perched proudly atop a mountain with bright white, bannered turrets and spotless, gracefully curving walls which had an interestingly irregular glitter of gold running along the rims of their high upper edges. It seemed in every way to be just like a castle in a fairy story, darlings, which of course is why I'm telling you about it now at bedtime. Of course Grettel was thrown into a perfect transport of delight.
"It's so sparkly and bright," she cried happily, tightly grasping one of her little pink hands with the other. "It looks like a candy castle!"
"Why so it does!" said Hansel, pouring them both another glass of champagne without spilling so much as one single solitary drop.
It shows you both what a grand job Bobsie had done and what an impressive reputation Hansel and Grettel had gotten among hoteliers when I tell you that when their Rolls pulled up to the graceful bank of steps leading to the main entrance of King's Retreat, they observed not only the Major Domo himself in all his regalia awaiting them, but to the total astonishment of them both, they saw, standing regally by his side, none other than the formidable, the nothing short of spectacular person of Opal Driscoll herself: the legendary and years-missing queen of all the society hostesses of Washington, New York, and Palm Beach.
Flashing her famously toothy smile, she reached out one diamond-ringed hand each to Hansel and Grettel as they emerged from their Rolls, frankly gaping up at her.
"Now you have the answer to the First question everyone's been asking since I left them flat," she said in her grand, full voice, leading them up the steps like two children. "I am here."
She paused at the entrance as its huge golden doors were swung gently open by minions and her smile grew even broader.
"The answer to the second question?" she asked, giving both their hands an affectionate little squeeze. "The answer is that once I found King's Retreat I simply could not stand the thought of hanging around those silly people in those silly places, desperately trying to force a little sparkle into their dreary parties. I knew from the day of my arrival here that my final fulfillment was to be its hostess. King's Retreat is my Shangri-la."
And then she studied Hansel and Grettel with such a long and thoughtful look that they both grew just a little intimidated, which was very unusual for them, my dears.
"I think you two will fit in very well," she said finally, giving them both a little nod and a pat each on their rosy cheeks. "As a matter of fact, I think you're made for the place."
And the more Hansel and Grettel saw of King's Retreat, the more they began to suspect that what Opal Driscoll had said was true as true could be, darlings. Everything was just right for them, every last little detail was absolutely perfect. Grettel rather summed it up for both of them one morning while they were having breakfast on the spacious balcony which curved along the wall outside her bedroom.
"I just love this balcony," she said. "I love this table and this chair. I love the way the egg has been cooked for exactly three minutes, and I love that it's been brought to me while it's still nice and hot. I love the air, I love the view, I love absolutely everything I can see and feel and taste and smell and hear."
"It is really grand, isn't it?" said Hansel, adding just enough cream to his coffee to make it perfect.
There was one aspect to the castle, however, which stuck out from its unobtrusive, universal perfection in a way that both Hansel and Grettel had to admit was distinctly odd. It was not in the slightest way irritating; actually it was quite lovely; actually it would be fair to say that it was even extraordinarily beautiful, but it was undeniably odd.
I told you that when they first drove up to King's Retreat Hansel and Grettel had noticed a golden glittering along its upper ramparts. A day or so later, after they had both got themselves comfortably settled in, the Major Domo— everyone called him Herr Oskar—took them on a delightfully complete tour of the castle starting from its deepest basements and dungeons and bringing them all the way up to its tallest roofs and spires.
As a climax to this tour, after going around and around and higher and higher on the almost comically interminable spiraling of a stone staircase, Oskar led them out into the brisk, fresh breeze blowing onto a high rampart's walkway and proudly spread both his arms wide with a great sweep like some gold-buttoned eagle. Following the pointings of his fingertips, Hansel and Grettel looked first one way, then the other, and they discovered that the glittering they had seen came from seemingly endless rows of golden statues which stood upon those ramparts.
Standing almost elbow to elbow, the statues gazed up at the sky, or peered far off toward the blue Alps lining the distant horizon, or stared with varyingly thoughtful expressions down the great drop into to the green and peaceful valley far below. They were exactly life size, all.dressed in the costumes of Imperial Rome, and their togas and sandals and occasional spears and shields put the cultured viewer—you will be sent to schools and become cultured in time I am sure, my dears—in mind of the figures painted on antique vases or carved into friezes running round the tops of ancient temples.
"It was begun, they tell me, as a whim of our original royal founder," Herr Oskar told them in his deep, carrying voice, and then he raised a large, white-gloved hand and pointed its forefinger to a tall golden figure standing where the highest end of the topmost rampart connected smoothly with the tallest tower.
"That statue was the first, and is the oldest," he informed them, indicating a dignified figure wearing the costume and regalia of a Caesar, "but you will see that every leaf on his laurel crown shines as bright as new. They never need polishing nor any kind of maintenance, these marvelous likenesses. They are pure gold, all of them, and every bit as perfect as when first they were made."
Then Oskar told them a strange thing about the statues, something that was actually a little spooky, my darlings, though you mustn't let it frighten you and give you nightmares when I turn off the light and leave you all alone in the dark—it seemed that every one of them, without exception, looked exactly like an honored guest who had stayed at King's Retreat at some point in its long and interesting history.
They followed the Major Domo on a tour of the castle's high and windy walks, halting behind him as he now and then paused before a particular golden image, and listened with increasing interest as he proudly spoke the name of the famous or infamous person which it so perfectly resembled. Occasionally he would smile and tell a little story concerning why some guest had been chosen for so notable an honor. Sometimes the stories were solemn and sometimes they were quite amusing, but he told them all with the utmost dignity and respect.
It is not easy to visibly impress peopl
e like Hansel and Grettel—you will find that out as you grow older, darlings—but the statues and Oskar's stories concerning them managed to do the job quite nicely. Their eyes grew wider and wider as they heard of the great statesmen and scientists and artists and captains of industry who had spent every moment they could possibly spare from their busy and highly important lives at King's Retreat and who, at the end, had eagerly accepted, had sometimes even fought over, the great distinction of having their exact likeness added to the long, gleaming, golden line which wound its way along the crenellated heights of their beloved hideaway.
Inwardly delighted at how thoroughly his little tour was impressing his guests, and seeing how each further revelation increased the effect, Oskar became, perhaps, just a trifle too pleased with himself, just a little too eager to bedazzle his charges.
"There is another group of them, you know," he said in a portentous tone, ignoring a cautionary voice which had begun to whisper warnings with mounting alarm deep down inside him, "a secret group. A much more important group than even these."
The sudden, sharp interest which flared in the faces of both Hansel and Grettel, the abrupt increase somehow in the shine of them, both these things abruptly warned Oskar that he had gone too far and said too much. He stood with one gloved hand barely touching the burly golden arm of a statue perfectly resembling Germany's greatest writer of operas and warily observed his guests edging ever closer to him like a couple of foxes closing in on a cornered hen.
"Indeed?" said Hansel, smiling up at Oskar with an intense attention which gleamed brighter by the second in his already bright blue eyes. "And who, pray, is in this so very special group, Oskar?"