Character Analysis
Wicked Old Witch
We first meet Muriel when Seth is exploring the forest and encounters her ivy shack, which is constructed around a large tree stump. Here's what Seth sees:
Beside the stump, dressed in crude rags, sat a wiry old woman gnawing at a knot in a bristly rope. Shriveled with age, she clutched the rope in bony hands with knobby knuckles. Her long, white hair was matted and had a sickly yellowish tiny. One of her filmy eyes was terribly bloodshot. She was missing teeth, and there was blood on the knot she was chewing, apparently from her gums. Her pale arms, bare almost to the shoulder, were thin and wrinkled, with faint blue veins and a few purple scabs. (3.16)
Whoa—let this all sink in for a moment. This woman is very old, and not in such good shape—she's almost kinda gross-looking, with all those veins and scabs and bloodshot eyes. For all that she's so old and sickly though, "Her voice was incongruously melodious and smooth" (3.18). Uh-oh…
Muriel tries to entice Seth into her shack for tea, a chat, or to play with her creepy wooden puppet, a limberjack called Mendigo. We don't know exactly what she has planned for Seth if he complies, but we can guess that it's nothing good. Right before he goes, she tells him: "'Stand by your words, young man, or you may not have a pleasant journey home'" (3.58)—and since this totally comes true for Seth, he's left wondering if she's a witch.
Psst… Seth… She is.
Yup—Muriel's a witch, and Grandpa fills the kids in on her backstory. She was married to a caretaker of Fablehaven over 160 years ago, and after consorting with "unsavory beings" (5.181) she picked up some black magic and had to be imprisoned.
Seductively Evil (Or Evilly Seductive?)
Surely not all witches are evil, but Muriel fits the bill. In the past "she tried to aid some of the foul denizens of the woods in a treacherous act of rebellion" (5.182), and these days she's quick to make threats. For instance, once she's freed she tells Seth, "'Your recompense is coming, my bold little whelp. I have a long memory'" (13.181). That's not exactly what you want to hear from someone who's skilled in the dark arts.
Okay. We get that she's evil. But where does the seductive part come in? Once Muriel's freed and has her own power back, she takes on a new form. Here's how she looks:
A tall, beautiful woman with a lustrous cascade of honey-blonde hair stood beside the recess […] She wore a spectacular azure gown that emphasized her seductive figure. (16.34)
While she's not the devil per say, we can't help but think of her as the devil in disguise here. So beautiful… yet so very dangerous. After all, here she is in all her radiant glory, standing in the Forgotten Chapel—and releasing the demon Bahumat from his bounds for some evil purpose that we don't quite learn the full extent of.
Fortunately for everyone who's not evil, the fairy army imprisons Muriel along with Bahumat in the end. But we don't really know what the extent of her plans were, so who knows what trouble might be carried out because of things she's set in motion.