Bran Hambric & The Farfield Curse

1. Bran Hambric & The Farfield Curse The Journal of Bran Hambric Brought to public by Angela Wang

2. Saturday, August 11 • Last night, a burglar broke into the house. Sewey called it a gnome burglar, but I’ve never heard of gnomes which are tall and gangly and googly-eyed and zombie-skinned. He was carrying a piece of paper which happened to fit with the letter piece I had from six years ago. Now the letter is almost finished, but he still has the other half of the paper. I’m dying to fit the whole letter together. Oh, and recently there’s been this black van that keeps following Sewey.

3. Tuesday, August 14 • Today was no ordinary Twoo’s day. We went to the fair and it was the same old boring thing, until Rosie nearly got hit by a truck. I leaped to save her and the truck was thrown aside. Don’t remember what happened, but after Adi, Sewey’s secretary, said I performed magic and stopped the truck with my bare hands! She said if anyone figured out then we would both end up in jail. Everything just gets weirder after Shambles, the burglar had come.

4. Wednesday, August 15 • Sewey made us go into a bookstore today to find some anti-gnome books. I don’t like to break rules but I went into the backroom of the store because Rosie told me to, but later I found out she was by the encyclopedias the whole time. Anyways, the fake-Rosie told me to open a cabinet, and inside was info on Emry Hambric, who was apparently a magic criminal who created some Farfield Curse. Then the owners, Astara and Mr. Highland caught me, but they let me go when they found out my mother was Emry. Really confused now…

5. Friday, August 17 • Remember the bookstore girl, Astara? I got a letter from her this morning, telling me to meet her in the alley. And get this: she blew up Sewey’s bank to bring me there! She gave me an envelope with a moon necklace in it. Apparently she saw my mother being shot by another woman. My mom was murdered! I’d never been so shocked. And Astara was there! She says she’ll give me more information about it on another day. I am determined to find out more.

6. Sunday, August 19 • I feel sad. As I spotted the open dumbwaiter in the kitchen today, I lowered myself in and uncovered Bartley Wilomas. He is going to be married to Rosie! I confronted Rosie and she confessed. She wanted a freedom and she will elope with Bartley! I never knew I could feel so alone. Of course, I’m happy about their marriage. But now I don’t know what to do without here. And of course it’s not helping since I found out my mother was a criminal.

7. Monday, August 20 • I’m still breathing hard from my frightening encounter earlier today. I was alone, looking at myself in a mirror, and suddenly a face, one that didn’t belong to me, appeared, hissing terrible words. It kept repeating, “Bran, you will bring me to life.” From what I’ve been able to figure out, this face belongs to a rather evil man called Baslyn, who helped my mother create her curse. Baslyn is supposed to be dead, but his spirit was implanted into my body and as long as I live, so does he. Such a happy thought.

8. Wednesday, August 22 • I’ve decided I don’t want to learn anymore. Adi sort of kidnapped me, I guess. But she took me to her house and I found out she’s a mage as well and a gnome called Polland lives in her house. Polland taught me a lot about different types of mages, magic secrets and wands. Adi has a huge magic library too. But then I found out I’m a Dormaysan mage, the rarest, combo of the other six mage types. Emry was too, and that was how she got the power to create her curse. It feels like I’m tainted with her decisions to use her power for evil.

9. Saturday, August 25 • Sewey was in a pretty bad mood yesterday after all his mucky bank stuff about gnomes. So at dark he went to a pub and made me go with him. There was a group of dark creepy men close to us, and as they muttered I heard my name. One of them said, “I hunt the boy Bran Hambric.” Well that was quite alarming, but this crow on the table seemed to spot me and it attacked me. But after that, I didn’t even have a wound. The bird was gone, and so was the blood. The creepy man who said my name, Joris, helped me up and looked at me freakily. He left his cell phone on the floor and I picked it up. I think it may be some valuable evidence.

10. Wednesday, August 29 • So much has happened the past few days. I’ll write them all down now one by one. First, after stealing Joris’s phone, I got a ransom call from him on Sunday night. He had Astara hostage and would kill her if I didn’t come over. I was chilled out of my wits, but I had no choice. When I got there Joris took his cell phone and pointed his wand at me and told me that we would be reviving Baslyn tonight. We went down the steps, his wand in my back, one by one.

11. Wednesday, August 29 • (Continued) At the last step, I pulled a trick. I used magic to cave in the ceiling. I rescued Astara and we tried to escape in their black van. But thanks to the traffic, Joris and his henchmen caught us and we had to drive all the way to Farfield. There in a tower we met Elspeth, who killed my mother (grrr) and Baslyn’s body. By touching him, I was forced to bring him back to life. He told me more about the Farfield Curse, but I hardly listened, I was shocked with horror. What would we do? We were in magecuffs.

12. Wednesday, August 29 • (Continued) But we got help from an unlikely ally. Joris and Elspeth had an argument with Baslyn, and we found the magecuffs were missing their batteries. We attacked Baslyn, but we wouldn’t have won with Shambles. He broke free of Baslyn’s control and fought him. He died bringing Baslyn down. We finally let him free by destroying the bracelet that controlled his mind. We took him back to Dunce and finally the Curse was completely and utterly destroyed. Baslyn’s spirit no longer resided in me. And I just decided to write this all down.

13. Friday, August 31 • Today it was unnaturally sunny. I went with Mr. Highland and Astara and Adi and Polland again to visit EmryHambric’s grave and we put a freshly-picked bouquet of sunflowers on it. I also put the Hambric necklace on top of the grave, because I wanted to return to my mother all the good she wished she had. I whispered that she could now rest in peace because the evil she created was finally utterly crushed and the good she had could finally live on. It was a nice day, and finally I felt free.