After breakfast the next morning Poe sat with Magica in the library to help her do research and she told him about her dream. "I hadn't thought about that for a good while." Poe said, remembering times when their mother told his fortune. "I know." Magica said, then pulled her mind back to the present.
"What's more, I never thought about that boy in crystal ball again until I once used time travel magic to try to steal Scrooge's number one the day her first earned it." Poe raised an interested eyebrow. "Go on…" He encouraged, certain he already knew what she was going to say. "It was him; it was a young, snot-nosed, stubborn little Scrooge McDuck that mother's crystal ball showed us. I was right about him too… nothing but trouble." Poe chuckled. "I imagine in more ways than you'd expected huh?" Magica rolled her eyes at her brother. "Button your beak." "Now, now; no need to get in snit. Although… are you sure Mother wasn't right as well?" he sniggered again. "You're lucky you're injured… that's three strikes now, but I can't bring myself to slap your beak off when you're already hurt." Poe just continued to snigger while Magica glared at him.
"You know Mother always had a keen intuition about her readings." He said when he'd stopped laughing. Magica sighed and nodded. "I know, that's what made her so good at predicting the future." "You never told me Grandma could tell the future!" Magica and Poe turned and saw the all kids at the door; Huey still in his bubble, Dewey and Louie on either side of Huey's bubble pushing and rolling him into the library and Webby and Lena right behind them.
"That's right, I never did tell you much about her, did I?" Poe said as Lena stood beside him and shook her head. "Your mom could see the future? That's so cool!" Webby squeaked, Huey and Dewey nodded. "Obviously she either couldn't see the future that well or didn't bother warning you about your umpteen failures to steal Uncle Scrooge's dime." Louie chuckled, unable to keep his sarcasm to himself.
Magica wasn't amused but kept her temper in check, deciding to explain her mother's future seeing instead of biting Louie's head off. It could just be part of Lena's lessons.
"Looking into the future isn't what books and movies make it out to be." She started. The kids eyed her with curiosity. "So, you can't just look into a crystal ball and see exactly what's going to happen, like tomorrow?" Dewey asked. "No, you can't. You might see things like what you'll wear tomorrow or yourself headed out to school but that would be about the gist of it." Poe explained. "Why would you only see going to school or what you'll wear?" Webby asked. "Because; the future isn't set in stone." Magica said.
"Certain little things like the clothes you wear and going to school are things you would already know; You've most likely already given thought about what you'll wear tomorrow or that you'll have to go to school." The kids began to look unimpressed as Magica explained but she continued on with her explanation.
"Other things, like you two for instance," Magica motioned to Lena and Webby. "Would be partially shown. A proper foretelling would show that the two of you would meet, being that you're connected to myself and Scrooge it was bound to happen, but you becoming friends couldn't have been predicted." The girls looked confused. "Why not?" Webby asked. "Because your meeting had many different possible outcomes. It was entirely up to the two of you whether or not you would be friends or enemies." Magica reminded herself of her mother, explaining future reading to the kids like her mother had to her so long ago.
"So, what you're saying is that while some things have already been decided or are destined to happen that's just a small fraction of the future; the rest is made up of too many possible outcomes to accurately predict what will happen?" Lena asked, looking to her father and aunt for confirmation of her summary.
"Precisely." Poe said, beaming with pride at how well his daughter had understood the lesson. "As they say… Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be." Magica said with a shrug. As she turned to pick up one of the books she had been using for her research she heard Poe begin humming the tune for the song. Remembering her mother singing that song to them when they were young, she found herself beginning to sing the lyrics.
"When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother; what will I be? Will I be pretty, will I be rich? Here's what she said to me~" Poe then joined her in the chorus. "Que sera, sera: whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to see, que sera, sera~"
As they sang the kids just quietly listened, Magica's voice was soft and melodic and Poe had the voice of a crooner like Sinatra or Crosby and together they sounded soothing and nothing short of magical.
"That was lovely." Webby sighed when they finished. "Why, thank you." Poe said with a warm smile. "It's been a very long time since we last heard our mother sing that song." He said, thinking back fondly. "Yes, but I can still see her preparing her potions while she would sing to the vinyl playing the song."
"Vinyl? As in an old vinyl record? Just how old are you two?" Louie piped up, then suddenly they heard Scrooge laughing from the doorway. "Lad, that's like one of those high-end stores where they don't put price tags on anything… if you have to ask then you really don't want to know." He laughed again. Magica turned around and glared at Scrooge, feeling an intense desire to slap his face for that remark; although she also felt her heart fluttering a bit from the absolutely smug, teasing and mischievous grin that was plastered on his face. Poe just laughed as well. "I'm not ashamed to admit I was already older when Lena came along." He chuckled.
After the laughter died down Poe ushered the kids out of the library, saying that they needed to stop distracting Magica from her research and let her work, though the wink he gave Magica he exited the room told her that he had other reasons for leaving her alone with Scrooge. She was seriously about ready to smack the next person who teased her about that old fool. Scrooge, however lingered, still snickering.
"That was not cute you know." Magica scoffed. "I just couldn't help myself." He said, the snickers dying away. "Well when do you want to work on that box?" He asked once he'd stopped snickering. Suddenly a thought crossed her mind and she looked Scrooge in the eye.
"Just how long were you standing there before you opened your beak?" She asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious about the possibility he'd heard them singing. "Just long enough Magica, just long enough." He grinned again, his expression telling her he'd heard her and Poe singing to the kids. "Not a word McDuck; not a word." She said, trying to fight the blush creeping over her face. "As you wish Magica." The grin was still plastered on his face, smug and mischievous and making her heart skip a beat. Then he returned to the subject of the box.
"I had almost forgotten about that, let's just start with that and I'll come back to these books later." She put her book back down on the table where she had spread out several other books, both leather-bound magic texts and her own notebooks. "I'll bring the box in but you'll have to work on it on your own for a while, I have an interview scheduled this afternoon, about those ruins actually so I'm going have to take care of that." "Well that won't be much of an interview," She deadpanned. "Your nephew demolished those ruins so I can't imagine there's much to talk about." Scrooge scowled. "Don't remind me; I haven't gotten that box opened yet and I'm certainly not going to say a word about that blasted ring."
For a while Magica worked on the puzzle box while Mrs. Beakley and Poe, with the other kids help, kept Huey upstairs and in his bubble prison and away from the interview. She eventually left the library to peek into the living room where the interview was being conducted to watch Scrooge as he tried to find something to say in response to the reporter's questions.
The reporter herself wasn't much better though, clearly new to her job; the mousey thing with pale green feathers, large glasses with thick lenses and ashy brown hair was fumbling with her mic and had seemed to have more trouble asking her questions than Scrooge did answering them.
The interview closed out when she accidentally took out the cameraman with her after stumbling on the edge of the large area rug and sent her mic flying right into his head. "Oh, I'm sorry Mr. McDuck, I'm just so nervous, this is my first big interview." She apologized. Scrooge tried not to laugh at her as he told her if was fine before she helped the cameraman pack up the equipment and leave.
"Well that was chaotic without your nephew needing to interrupt it." Magica chuckled from the library door. Scrooge looked over and saw her looking amused at the poor reporter's mess of a first interview. "I can't disagree. At least I didn't have to worry too much about my lack of, well, anything much to say." He chuckled a bit himself. "Poor thing though." Magica scoffed. "What? You feel sorry that she couldn't keep it together and actually conduct an interview?" Scrooge shook his head. "No, I meant that cameraman, he's gonna have a nasty bump!" They both laughed.
"So, what about that box?" He asked. Magica beamed proudly. "I got it open." "Well then let's go in there so you can show me!" Scrooge practically bolted into the library.
Now he was acting like the kid at Christmas and Magica tried to ignore what she was feeling as she watched his eyes glint with excitement just before he took off to the box. She just sighed as she followed him.
The black marble box sat open upon the table amongst the books. Inside where some small scrolls written in a language neither of them knew, a golden pendant, and silver cuff bracelet, both engraved with a few symbols of the unknown language.
"What do you make of all of it?" Scrooge asked her. "I'm really not sure; I can't read the language, that could take a while to translate and we likely don't have that much time." She said, then picked up the jewelry. "These are just ordinary in the sense that they aren't magical." Scrooge examined the pieces himself more closely. "They do look ornamental though, probably status symbols for higher social class of the civilization." He supposed and she nodded in agreement.
"What baffles me though is that looking at the designs, and more specifically the tool marks, these seem too different from the ring your nephews found." Scrooge looked at Magica with concern. "So, then you think that these scrolls don't say anything about the ring?" She shook her head. "I couldn't say for certain with just those three things to compare but I feel like that ring is too different and those scrolls are most likely some sort of diary or governmental records."
Scrooge carefully looked over the scrolls and decided Magica was most likely right, they looked vaguely similar to ancient Greek and Roman documents and if that meant anything then while the contents would still be interesting, they most likely wouldn't have any information about the cursed ring.
"Now what?" He asked, the concern for his nephew rising in his eyes. "Let me call Hazel; she may know a way to remove that spell… I'm beginning to have my suspicions about that ring." Magica's eyes revealed the gears turning in her mind, and a hint of anger rising as whatever she suspected was turning in her mind. "What? If you've figured something out then please tell me, I don't want to be in the dark, we're talking about my nephew here after all."
Magica nodded and proceeded to tell him about her unexpected visitor the night before and what her sister had told her about the elders. After several moments of discussion Scrooge agreed with her suspicions about the ring and left to check on Huey while she used her own crystal ball to call Hazel.