The sun was just about to rise from behind the hills around the Haravara country's capital. It was late autumn. The children were still sleeping deep. It was a lazy Saturday all around. There was no school to go to, and probably no trip with their parents either, because dad wanted to buy new bicycles for the whole family. Well, that means he'll be chasing them down from morning till night together with their mom.
However, some noise was heard in the children’s room. Things were shifting themselves from place to place. The curtain was pulling itself open and closing. Books were just being taken off the shelf and someone unseen was thumbing through them. From under Maxík's bed, someone began throwing out long-lost blocks, recently lost toy-car wheels, and a stray plastic turtle the kids had gotten for a birthday.
Majka began squirming in bed. She sat on the edge of her bed with her eyes closed. She put her feet on the floor.
"Aaaaaaah!" She exclaimed, waking Maxík up as well.
"What's going on," Maxík jumped out of the bed, and roared, " Aaaaaaaaaaaaah."
The children were rubbing their aching legs and looking around. Everything was jumbled. There were things from the table on the floor and someone kept throwing things out from under the bed that they already thought were lost. Maxík stepped on a small toy car and Majka stepped on her old blue paper clip. When they saw that some dusty things were still flying out from under the bed, they winked at each other and slowly climbed up onto Maxík's bed. There they covered themselves with the duvet and were watching from behind it what was going on in their room.
"What are we going to do?" Majka whispered.
"I don't know," Maxík whispered even more quietly, "I guess we'll have to wait and see what it is and then start screaming."
A white figure emerged from under the bed.
Scarecrow! Majka wanted to scream, but Maxík put his hand over her mouth.
"Stop, look closer," the frightened eyes of their friend Kaško peeked out from under the white T-shirt, which Maxík had once put on the floor, and which had somehow mysteriously found its way under the bed.
"Kaško?!” Majka whispered in disbelief.
"Sorry fellas, but I can't sleep all night."
"And because you can't sleep, you have to come into our room and make such a mess?" Majka peeked out from under the covers, already fully awake.
"No, that's not why."
"Why then?" Max urged.
"I've lost something. Something very important," Kaško began speaking in riddles.
"What was that?" the children asked after a moment of silence.
"My miracle coin," Kaško pointed to the empty little pouch in his coat.
"A miracle coin?"
"We ghosts have our stores too, just as we have our libraries. Well, and there one must pay for everything. But we don't have money like you. Each ghost has only one coin with which to buy anything. He doesn't have to give it anywhere; he just shows it and chooses what he wants."
"Interesting," the children were listening to Kaško.
"Well, I lost mine somewhere." Kaško said, nervously, "I've been looking for it everywhere. So, now I'm going to be punished for losing it and waiting endlessly for a new coin."
"And can't you just conjure it up?" Max asked logically.
"Or make one?" Majka added.
"See, I hadn't thought of that, Majka. Make one, make one," Kaško began to think stiffly, and the children swept off the ground everything that didn't belong on the ground.
Kaško was going here and there and flying all around the room, murmuring something to himself, and at one point he stopped in the corner of the room:
"I am going into that. Will you join me?"
The children looked at their friend in disbelief.
"I'm going to go make that coin. Will you help me?"
"Sure!" exclaimed the children, and in a few minutes, they were dressed, packed, washed, and with two snacks in their backpacks.
"We can go!"
"We'll start in Štós, Kaško said, and they walked to the station, from which a bus took them to Štós in a few minutes.
,,Kaško, but this is a spa, isn't it?" Majka tried to understand why they were here, "Do you want to have a bath first, having a little treatment...?"
“Why," Kaško stopped her, "look around. You see the beautiful nature. The spa is here because there are hills all around, and there are many healing things in the hills and in the forests. The best, most secret and healing things, are always in the depths and not on the surface."
"For example?" Majka still didn't understand.
"For example, healing water." Kaško leaned towards the children. "But it wasn't here all the time. There were mines here long ago. Only later did they build a spa here. And right here where we are standing, underground, in a secret shed, there is a mineral that should be used to make my coin," Kaško explained, searching desperately for something again. Now he was flying around again on the wonderfully scented fir trees.
"What is he looking for again?" Majka asked her brother quietly.
"I have no idea," Maxík shook his head.
"Got it," Kaško pointed to a small green, almost invisible mark on one of the fir trees. "We have to look for marks like that, and they'll lead us to that old shed."
The children walked around the forest looking for mysterious markings on the scented trees.
"We are not surprised that there are spas here. Just the smell and the air must be healing," Majka sighed and dabbed the scent into her nose.
"It heals, too," Kaško pointed out, running off after another secret sign on the tree, "There are several places in the land of Haravara where ghosts go to regain strength, and this is one of them. When we're tired of flying and saving people, we come here and just hang out in the trees like bats and breathe. After three days we're as sound as a trout."
"Here's another one," Maxík exclaimed, smiling at the idea of Kaško hanging upside down in a tree and inhaling deeply.
"Here it should be. This hill." He brushed away the grass and the needles and leaves attacked by the years. A hole in the ground appeared before them.
"Well now... To hell with that!" Kaško exclaimed.
"What happened again?" the children said nervously.
"I forgot to take a pick and a shovel," Kaško admitted, but immediately tamed his temper. "Quick, eat this," he gave the children the booster. "We're going to Medzev, it's just below the hill here."
"Shall we go and see Uncle Helmut for a cookie?" Maxík was pleased.
"There won't be enough time for that. We're going to the big hammer. Perhaps they have some shovels and picks made there."
In a little while, they came in Medzev. They came to a wooden structure that looked like a small water mill with a wheel. When they entered the courtyard, a man had just docked a shovel with a huge hammer that was spinning along with the water wheel. It was breathtaking. Kaško noticed the pickaxe lying on the ground and showed it to the children.
"Hello," the siblings greeted politely.
"Hello," the smith turned around, "have you come to see our water-smithy?"
"We already know this one. We've been here before on a trip. We also know that the best iron shovels and other things in the world were and probably are made here," the children beamed in front of him. "We want to ask if you would lend us one shovel and one pick for a little while."
"Why not," laughed the uncle smith, "if the children want to work and help their parents, then let them help," and he handed them his pick and shovel.
"Thank you," the children took the heavy tools in their hands.
They all nodded to each other, and the children rounded the corner and flew back up the hill with Kaško, back to Štós' old shed.
As soon as they walked in, Kaško started kicking like crazy.
"And can't you do it with some magic?" Maxík asked, seeing him strain.
"It's strange but no. All magical things must come into being without magic. That's what gives them their power. The magic enters them later," Kaško explained while kicking and kicking.
"Interesting," Majka mused as she began to snack, offering Maxík a snack as well, "all magical things must first be quite ordinary to become magical. Good enough."
"I got it," Kaško jumped into her thoughts.
He picked up a small piece of some kind of stone from the ground.
"This is the miracle rock from which I must forge my coin," Kaško pointed.
"Forge?"
"Shall we go back to Medzev and forge it there?" Majka started to pack slowly.
"Oh, no. They have an awfully big hammer there. We must find a blacksmith's forge," Kaško wondered aloud.
"But where will we find it today?" Maxík said, a bit worried.
"There is one in Moldava nad Bodvou. My great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather used to work there. There is a small museum there now. But the whole forge is there."
"And you know how to forge a coin?" Majka was wondering.
"Well, just sort of," confessed Kaško, "but I believe my great-great-great-great grandfather still lives there. After all, he is the ghost of that forge."
As soon as he finished, they went to the place where the buses come from and drove to nearby Moldava. Then they just walked a bit through the town and found an old cellar. It was a small stone house with a wooden fence. They went inside.
"It's like in a fairy tale here," Majka gushed.
Everything was as it had been more than a hundred years ago. A big furnace, bellows for blowing, anvil, machines for working horseshoes, all the necessary blacksmith tools. In the next room there were still tools of gingerbread makers, shoemakers, and other craftsmen on display. In the next room, there was the kitchen, and on the stove lay an elderly ghost with white hair and a long beard braided into a ponytail.
"Grandpaaaa," cried Kaško, running to the stove.
The white-haired, white-bearded ghost opened his eyes and hugged Kaško stiffly.
"Kaško, I haven't seen you for so long!"
"Nor I saw you, grandpa," whispered Kasko, moved.
"These are my friends Maxík and Majka. I don't know why but they see us."
"Pleased to meet you. I'm grandpa Hubert," grandpa ghost smiled at them.
"Nice to meet you," the children smiled back.
"What brings you here, great-great-great grandson?"
"This," Kaško showed a piece of the mysterious lump to his grandpa.
"You lost your coin?" Grandfather immediately understood.
"Yes," said Kaško, ashamed, "will you help me?"
"Of course," Grandpa clapped Kaško on his shoulder and immediately lit the fire, prepared all the tools, and handed a blacksmith's apron to Kaško.
The children chose a second snack. Bread with apricot jam and watched Kaško and Grandpa Hubert making a small coin out of a small piece of stone.
"This house is more than 150 years old. And this equipment in it was brought here from various old houses in Moldava and its surroundings," Grandpa Hubert explained to the children, banging the stone on the anvil once more and once less. Kaško held the pebble in large pliers and when necessary, he pushed it into the fire or water.
"All the blacksmith's tools are mine. They were transferred from my cellar, which I had in Moldava. Being a blacksmith is the most beautiful thing in the world," said Grandpa Hubert.
"Why?" the siblings wondered.
"You make something out of a piece of metal, out of ore, that is beautiful or can help someone move or live," Grandpa continued.
"For example, horseshoes, knives, scythes, barrel fittings," added Kaško, and put a small piece into the water, and it hissed there like an angry snake or a calm steam train.
"And why are those boots and the tools to make them and the gingerbread man's tools here?" Maxík finished his piece of bread.
"In Moldava, shoemakers and mead makers were very well known, so they put all the craftsmen under one roof," smiled Grandpa Hubert and looked at the forged coin.
"It is so beautiful," Majka swallowed the last bite of bread.
" And now, my great-great-great grandson, just take the coin to a place that connects nature with some magical, spiritual place and leave it there overnight."
"Oh, that's what I have forgotten about," Kaško saddened. "Where can I find such a place?"
Grandpa Hubert and Kaško sat down thinking.
"What about Debraď?" Majka said quietly, "we went there with my dad and mom..."
"Exactly," Maxík interrupted her, "it's a little church in the woods. It's made up of stones from the original church and trees that have grown there over the years."
"If this isn't a magical and spiritual place, I don't know what is," Majka beamed.
Kaško flew over the exit and whistled enthusiastically to his friends.
"That could be it," Grandpa Hubert confirmed.
"So, we're leaving, Grandpa. Have a nice day."
"Run off, you windbag," Grandpa Hubert stroked Kaško's windblown hair.
Kaško took his friends by the hand and ran away to the village of Debraď. From there, they followed a dirt road and after a while they came to a beautiful place. A little clearing with a spring called St. Ladislav's Spring.
"This is the spring of water that King Ladislav is said to have prayed for his army," Maxík showed Kaško what he still remembered from his trip with his parents.
Just above it, there stood a beautiful natural church. On the ground, there were the original walls and stones of the church that had stood there over 600 years ago, and various trees and plants grew around and in it.
"This really is one of the most mystical places," whispered Kaško and went inside the church.
He found a spot among the rocks and tree roots. He looked around to see if anyone could see him putting his coin there.
"Now it has to lie here all night," Kaško turned to his friends.
They were sitting in this beautiful place for a while, Maxík took a small ukulele out of his backpack and sang a song.
When they finished singing, they went home. The sun was setting. The children slept like logs after such a day. Kaško sat by the natural church in Debraď, waiting. At one point, a glow appeared where he had put his coin. Kaško walked to the spot and saw his new miraculous coin.
He picked it up from the ground and immediately flew to one of the little shops and bought little presents for Maxík and Majka and, of course, something for Grandpa Hubert. What was it? Guess what!
