Maxík and Majka were sleeping and dreaming the most beautiful dreams.
Maxík and Majka were sleeping and dreaming the most beautiful dreams.
Majka attended the royal ball. How else than a princess. In a gorgeous pink and snow-white dress with a hairstyle that charmed at least three princes. Her hair clips were the envy of all the other princesses at the ball. The most handsome prince had just gotten up and was about to ask her to dance when she heard a strange sound outside the castle windows. Whistling, croaking, coughing. Majka slowly opened her eyes and looked around the room. She saw nothing but Maxík's tired and frightened eyes shining.
"I was just playing the most beautiful song when someone started hissing and grunting."
"You hear that too?" Majka asked, a little frightened.
"I can hear that." Maxík confirmed, "but listen well. The sound is getting louder..." "It's like it's getting closer to our window," whispered Majka, slowly moving closer to the window.
MAJKA: "Look there!"
She shouted in a whisper, pointing her finger to show Maxík the window.
Maxík quickly walked over to the window and looked out.
"Open it now, Majka!"
The children opened the window as fast as they could.
Something wrapped in three blankets, two coats, ten scarves and shawls with five thermometers in its mouth and six caps on its head fell into the room.
"Kaško?!" Maxík whispered in disbelief.
"What are you doing?" Majka shouted, and immediately went silent, so as not to wake her mom and dad.
"Have you invented a new night game?"
Kaško remained silent. I mean, not silent, but grunting.
"This one didn't work out for you," Kaško scolded Maxík
"Zzzzz, zzzzzzzzzz, uh, uh, uh," came from Kaško's mouth.
"What?" the children asked in unison.
Kaško cleared his throat and took the thermometers out of his mouth.
"Wait, I'm just going to clear my throat and get some rest." Kaško took a breath and started, "I'm sick!"
"Do ghosts know how to get sick, too?" Majka wondered.
Meanwhile, Maxík was trying to see if Kaško had a temperature rise.
"This thermometer says your temperature is 64.50," Maxík stated, checking the thermometer again.
"That's still cool. We ghosts have a normal temperature of 55.20, so we don't get cold when we fly," Kaško replied and coughed again.
"But how is ghostly sore throat treated?" Majka asked, a little frightened.
"Special tea," whispered the sickly little ghost, pulling from his pocket an old piece of paper with a prescription on it that had no letters, but herbs and apparatus and teapots drawn on it. The whole procedure was drawn like a comic book.
MAX: "Phew," Maxík sighed worriedly, "where are we going to find all this?"
"Hmmm," Majka joined in, "Mom probably won't have this in the kitchen."
"I don't know. I haven't been sick for more than 825 years," Kaško sobbed. "But Grandma has been sick recently. About 300 years ago. And we got her these things..."
Kaško paused and the children opened their mouths in anticipation of some exotic place.
"... in Borša!" Kaško's eyes lit up.
"Borša? What's that?"
"A small village. Here in Haravara. There should be a rare cookbook and Anka Bornemisz's medical briefcase. In it, you'll find everything I need."
"But how do we get there?"
"If those things are still there and if the old manor house in Borša is still standing, then we have to make the infusion there," Kaško reflected.
"I never wanted to use this, but there's no other way," he reached into one of his pockets. "Take two leaves," he handed them some kind of herb.
The children ate the herbs and .... nothing.
"Nothing?" Kaško laughed. "We'll see! He grabbed his friends, and off they flew. The sun had risen in Haravara in that time and there were plenty of cars and people below them.
"There it is! Do you believe this?!"
They landed in front of a magnificent mansion with a courtyard.
"I thought it had already fallen apart since Ferko is no longer here."
"Who?"
"František Rákoczy....the second. A great man. A fighter, a rebel, but he also wrote beautiful poems. Have you seen the wreath that's on St. Elizabeth's Cathedral in Košice? It's there because Ferko is buried on that very spot under the church. And you can also find his statue in the city."
"It's beautiful," Majka dreamed. She closed her eyes a little to finish the dream from which Kaško had awakened her, and then she heard her brother scream.
"Watch out! Don't you see that!?"
She opened her eyes and saw people walking past them and Maxík avoiding them. They look as if they didn't see them. A little dog came up to Majka and when she petted him, poor thing, he almost contracted a heart attack.
"What's going on?" Majka threw up her hands in amazement.
"What, are they all blind?" Maxík fretted.
"No, just no one sees you. I gave you a yellow-leafed stopper. An herb that makes you invisible for a few hours. Well, come on, 'cause I think my temperature's already 98.45."
They entered the mansion and split up. Everyone went to look elsewhere. Kaško walked slowly and sickly around the big canopy and remembered little František Rákoczy, who was born here. When he saw his toys and clothes, he sat down for a moment and remembered the hustle and bustle of that time. Horses everywhere, servants, entertainments... And suddenly, in one of the windows, he actually saw horse-drawn carriages coming in.
"That's exactly how it was," Kaško sighed as he looked at the screen in the window that showed life in the mansion. "Only Lászlo, Gergey, and Ilonka were still in this gate." He searched all the corners once more and moved on.
Majka glanced at the dresses worn here in the castle and studied a few of František's books that lay on the table. All the visitors marvelled at the technical difficulty of the display as they saw the pages of the book turn by themselves. It was like magic.
Maxík went through the weapons room and through the small prison and found it.
But the case was behind glass. All the herbs, flasks, prescriptions, and sachets were hanging behind glass or hidden in drawers.
Maxík took a whistle out of his backpack and began to play one of the tunes he had seen in notes in the museum.
"At at at atchoo," sneezed Kaško heavily, " how do you know that?"
"How do I know what?" Maxík wondered.
"That this was Francis' favorite song."
"I saw it written in the sheet music and it was also played in a room," Maxík explained.
"There he is!" Kaško's eyes lit up, and then Majka walked into the room.
"Guys, hurry up, there are more tourists coming in a minute."
"Wait, let me read the prescription... Put three pinches of pike powder, five pinches of bean powder, four drops of dragon's blood in the pot. After three minutes of boiling, add the bloodstone. Finally, into the rising smoke, sing a song. The three frogs must join in the singing.
Dragon's blood and dragon's beard
herbs and fire heat
They'll cure you, dear little ghost,
you'll be a superstar again."
"Okay, okay, but how are we going to cook it here? The tourists will come, the lady guide, and what is worse, we could set the place on fire," Maxík mused.
"And you forgot that we shouldn't be playing with fire at all. We're still children," Majka said.
"And where do we get three frogs here?"
"I have an idea. There was a beautiful forest with swamps not far from here. Let's take it all there, cook it, and bring it back," Kaško suggested.
The children agreed and Kaško showed them what to take. After a while they flew towards Oborín, where Kaško remembered the marshes, the forest, the meadows....
"But these sidewalks and boardwalks and signs weren't here."
Beautiful nature was all around them. A forest and a swamp. Birds and frogs were singing. There were even more insects flying around than elsewhere.
"Look, there's a nature trail now."
"What's a nature trail?" Majka asked.
"Well, this is a trail that goes through an interesting countryside. And when you walk along it, you learn something," Maxík explained.
"You explained it well," Kaško praised Maxík and coughed.
"What's that on your forehead?" Majka asked, startled.
Kaško grabbed his forehead and felt a large hot lump.
"Here we go! The fever has exceeded 100 degrees. Let's go cook!"
"Wait, but you can't just make a fire here and cook or roast."
"But everything I need is here, even the frogs," sobbed Kaško and sat down in the grass next to the green swamp.
Maxík pulled out a small drum and a shaker, Majka unpinned one hairpin from her hair and made a drumstick out of it, a few frogs poked their heads out of the swamp. First, they caught and swallowed three mayflies and a dragonfly, the frogs use this to strengthen their voices, and then they began to sing. The frogs saw them, for the yellow-leaved hawkweed makes man and ghost invisible only to the human eye. You probably know that animals have better eyes and ears and legs and... Come to Oborín and you'll see why. Kaško cleared his throat three times, sneezed four times and ran:
"Dragon's blood and dragon's beard,
herbs and fire heat
They'll cure you, dear little ghost,
you'll be a superstar again."
As he was singing, he stood up and walked along the wooden paths through the swamp. He walked and walked. Before each song, he took a deep breath
"Look, Maxík, at Kaško's forehead," Majka whispered to her brother.
"He's lost his bump, and look, he's put off the scarves and coats, too."
Kaško suddenly turned to them. He had his merry eyes back.
He put all the blankets on the ground, and they all sat down so that they could see the beauty around them.
"Did the song work?" Maxík asked.
"Maybe," Kaško smiled mysteriously. "I remembered how we treated our grandmother. We also gave her herbs and all sorts of things. Nothing helped, not even magic formulas. Everything started to work only when we went with her to the countryside, breathed the fresh air, let the sun caress us and opened our ears."
"Did you open their ears?" Majka looked at Kaško in surprise.
"Hushshsh" Kaško put a finger to his mouth, put his hands behind his head and lay down in the grass.
Above them in the treetops, there sat little birds singing:
"Dragon's blood and dragon's beard,
herbs on the neck, abdomen
They'll cure you, dear little ghost,
just in the fresh, crisp air."
Majka and Maxík lay down in the grass next to Kaško.
"They're right, the feathered little beasts," laughed Kaško.
"True, very true," Majka confirmed.
"Are you all okay?" echoed behind their heads.
They looked behind them. There stood a group of children who had come to walk along the nature trail in the marshes of Oborín.
"Can you see us?" Majka blurted out.
"Well, it's not night. And you're not invisible either," laughed the children from the trip.
"We're not," Maxík sighed and winked at Majka.
"We're coming. We were just listening to that beautiful singing. Close your eyes and listen."
All the children and their teachers closed their eyes and listened to the birds singing. They started to smile strangely.
Kaško took blankets, scarves, hats, Maxík, Majka, and flew home.
When the kids from the trip opened their eyes, they were looking for our siblings, but they were already at home.
"Thank you, my friends. You saved my ghostly life," Kaško said pathetically on the windowsill.
"We thank you," Majka looked gratefully at Kaško.
"Once again, we have found some beautiful sitees in our Haravara country," Maxík added.
"And tomorrow we'll take Mom and Dad there, too," Majka added.
"But not until tomorrow. Tonight, we must sleep through the night," Maxík said, and even as he said it, he lay down in bed and was almost asleep by the end of the sentence.
Majka was already asleep too.
Kaško sat on the windowsill and sang them a magic song.
"Dragon's blood and dragon's beard
herbs and fire heat
your friends will cure you,
but now sleep well."
