Fablehaven Chapter 8 Summary

Retaliation

  • When Seth wakes up, he checks the jar and sees a giant tarantula inside—but then he remembers that he needs milk to see magic critters.
  • He goes downstairs to get some, and comes back to find an ugly critter that's human in form but has stubs instead of wings; when Seth tries to feed it some milk, it escapes.
  • Seth feels crummy about whatever happened to the fairy. He works on the puzzle in the tree house, but then a giant swarm of fairies comes for him.
  • The fairies magically blow up the tree house and chase Seth until he jumps into the pool. This only stalls them briefly, though, and they throw magic at him… and then his body begins to change.
  • Grandpa shows up and begins interrogating the fairies, but it's too late for Seth—he has flippers and tentacles instead of limbs, and he also has tusks.
  • Turns out that the fairies took vengeance on Seth for catching a fairy and leaving her enclosed overnight, which turned her into an imp. Imps are fallen fairies, which are nasty little critters that are generally bad news.
  • Kendra asks some questions. This isn't a problem for Maddox since when he captures fairies, he leaves the cages open overnight—but Seth had no way of knowing to do this.
  • Grandpa can only think of one person who can help Seth: Muriel Taggart. Dale puts Seth into a wheelbarrow (since he's got a tail instead of legs now) and off they go.
  • Muriel reverses the transformation once Grandpa agrees to loosen one knot by blowing on it. This frees up enough energy for her to work a spell, and Seth is back to himself again.
  • Grandpa says he's not happy about Muriel only being down to one knot keeping her confined, but at least Seth hopefully learned a lesson about not tangling with magic critters.