A/N

Hey, hey, hey! Here it is! The chapter my OC appears in for the first time!

Enjoy!

-

Chapter Seven

Jared was awakened an hour and a half later by the sounds of squeaking. He opened his eyes and…saw Simon's mice.

Then he heard the crunch of a cracker. He went over to the makeshift house and saw that some of the crackers were gone.

"Hello?" he called.

Jared noticed that the brownie/boggart had left a trail cracker crumbs, so he followed them off the table and onto the floor, until he found a little creature with ears and whiskers of a mouse and clothes like a human.

"This is just tasty, tasty, delicious honey!" the brownie exclaimed. "So good! So yummy, yummy, yummy!"

The brownie noticed Jared and screamed. And so did Jared. Upon hearing Jared's scream, the brownie disappeared and began to scurry away.

"Wait! Come back!" Jared cried, grabbing a bottle of honey and trying to follow where the strange little creature was going. "Here, have some more honey," he bribed.

"I shouldn't, I shouldn't…" the invisible brownie said. "But…if you insist!" he said, grabbing the cracker and wolfing it down.

"Where are you?" Jared asked. "Why can't I see you?"

"You don't see us," the brownie explained, reappearing. "But now you do. But only if we want you to."

"We? You mean all the magical creatures Arthur Spiderwick wrote about?" Jared inquired, showing the brownie the field guide.

"AGH!!" the brownie cried. "The book! I'm sorry, master, I failed! I failed, I failed!"

He began to knock things off the table in his rampage. "Instructions were simple: 'Protect the book'! And I did it, I hid it! I bound it and wound it! I did my best, locked it in the chest!"

The brownie turned to Jared. "But YOU!! You looked and looked and found the book!"

That's when the brownie turned into a boggart, which meant things were beginning to look bad. The boggart began to chuck things at Jared.

"You foolish boy! Idiot! Are you blind?! I put a note right on the cover! Can't you read?!"

He whipped out a bright red kazoo. "You leave me no choice!" The boggart scurried to the window, threw it open, and blew hard into the kazoo. Jared cringed. The backup would be coming.

A few seconds later, loose papers began to float around the room as something invisible with wings landed. "Thimbletack?" a voice asked. Jared guessed that, whatever the thing was, it was a female.

"The book! THE BOOK!!" the boggart screeched.

"Thimbletack!" the voice said sternly. "What did I tell you about getting upset over the little things?" A cracker covered with honey floated in mid-air and was handed toward the boggart. "Please settle down."

The boggart looked at the cracker and then looked--it seemed--at the invisible being. "All right, all right," he said, taking the cracker and turning back into a brownie. "But you--"

"Now, please! I was just beginning to relax in the those really tall stalks of grain--for once! Every day, it's the same with you: something's after the book, something's gonna put us all in danger! And then I have to fly over here about ten times a day, and no danger EVER shows up!" "But--but--" the brownie said, pointing toward Jared.

"But nothing!" the voice said. "I want you to promise me that you won't do any more false alarms! I know I'm not that old, but my wings aren't that experienced! The poor things are getting worn out."

"Okay, okay!" the brownie conceded. "But Alina! Look behind you."

The being turned around and let out a scream. "A HUMAN!! OH, WOW!!" she cried, and from the looks of it, she hid behind the table.

"Alina! Don't do this!" the brownie scolded. "You'll have to be brave for the both of us!"

All that answered was some whimpering.

He looked at Jared. "Well, YOU scared her!" he yelled. "DO SOMETHING!!"

"Me?!" Jared cried. "Why can't you?! I've hardly known her for two minutes!"

"She gets like this sometimes, and I can never handle it!" the brownie said, exasperated. "Maybe if you--the human who scared her--apologized, she'd come out!!" "All right, okay!" Jared said. He wasn't sure what kind of faerie this thing was--but he hoped he could get whatever it was to come out.

He looked to where he guessed the creature was. "Um…hi," he said, then scrunched up his face when he realized how lame that sounded. "Uh…I'm really sorry I scared you. Your friend here was scared of me, too…but you kinda knew that already…"

"If this is supposed to be helping me," the voice said, "IT'S NOT!!" Then she started to cry.

"It's okay, it's okay" he said in a calming voice. "I won't hurt you. Just please come out. I promise, I won't do anything to you."

"You…promise?" the voice asked from behind the table.

"Yes," Jared said. "I'd never do anything to hurt you or Thimbletack or any other faerie. Now please…come out."

Whatever he had said worked, because the next thing he knew, he saw a medium-sized set of wings, a smooth shock of red hair, and the most beautiful blue eyes popping up from behind the table.

At that moment, Jared understood what exactly this creature was: she was a Field Faerie. The most powerful faerie that existed. And he got to witness, firsthand, what one actually looked like!

Jared had to admit, this was truly amazing. He didn't think it would be possible to see a Field Faerie in his lifetime. They usually kept themselves hidden from humans…but this one must have been an exception.

"Wow," she breathed, taking him in. "Thimbletack, why didn't you tell me there was a human in here sooner?"

"I did," the brownie said, slapping his own face in frustration, but the Field Faerie didn't seem to notice. She seemed to be staring at Jared--a lovelorn look in her eyes.

Jared began to feel uncomfortable. "Um…Thimbletack?" he asked. "What's wrong with your friend?"

"You idiot!" Thimbletack said. "Have you or have you NOT read that book?! Let's see…she's met a human…been spooked out of her wits…put her trust in him…yep, it's hopeless!!"

"Wait, what's hopeless?" Jared asked.

"Can't you see?!" Thimbletack shouted, as if it were obvious. "SHE LIKES YOU!!"

"WHAT?!" Jared was totally confused. How could the most powerful, fantastical creature in the invisible world be in love with some boring old, troublemaking human boy like himself?

It just didn't make any sense.

But, apparently, it did to her.

"You know," she said. "I've never really been friends with a human before." She giggled. "Well, if you didn't catch my name before, I'm Alina."

Thimbletack cleared his throat rather loudly, and Alina continued in a bored tone of voice. "Fine. I'm Alina…the one and only Field Faerie for the next one hundred human years. But technically it's only for the next eighty-six, considering I would be fourteen right now if I were a human--"

"That's great!" Jared said quickly, not really seeing where this was going. "Um…so, what exactly did I do wrong when I read the book?"

Alina stared at him. "You read the book?"

Thimbletack began to change into a boggart again. "Yes, he read the book!!"

Jared cringed again.

Even if he didn't know where this was going, he didn't like it at all.