This is not true of the fungal growth’s unripe or less mature form, known colloquially as the “spaceman” type. These growths are typified by a mildly unpleasant blue-grey colouring and an aroma that is sour and bitter, almost acrid. Rather than the visually pleasing ring of conjoined fairy figures found in more developed specimens, the miniaturised figures here are sinister and unappealing: spindly humanoids of no apparent gender, the smooth heads are disproportionately large and bulbous, and if these possess lips, ears, or noses, then these features are at best vestigial and practically unnoticeable. The eyes, however, are much bigger than those found in the mature and fully ripened “fairy” specimens, being a uniform and glassy black in colour, noticeably slanted and entirely lidless.
Where they are rooted on the building’s second level, these growths are entirely visible and tangible. In the one instance where a specimen was found upon the ground floor, it was hidden to the ordinary senses and appeared to only manifest itself in brief consciousness-spasms that afflicted certain individuals, causing hallucinations where the compound figures of the higher-dimensional growth were perceived as independent tiny females in the manner of a fairy visitation. It may be imagined that the less-mature “spaceman” variety might bring about comparable dreams or mirages, but with black-eyed goblins substituted for wing-sporting naked women.
On the structure’s upper floor, where the starfish-like blooms are easily detectable, they are known variously as Puck’s Hats, Bedlam Jennies, Hag’s Teats, or Mad Apples. It seems that the most important quality of these intriguing fungi is that they are the one foodstuff that such insubstantial and higher-dimensional beings as ghosts find edible. According to reports from these dimensionally displaced inhabitants of the unfinished structure’s second storey, while the ripe “fairy” variety are the most flavoursome and sought-after, the “spaceman” form may be resorted to at times for want of any other sustenance. In either instance, the growth’s “eyes” turn out to be small pips or seeds, hard and inedible, that must be spat out or excreted, thus ensuring that the growth . . . obviously not a fungus in the strict terrestrial sense . . . can propagate itself.
There are also reports that structures exist on some mezzanine level that’s halfway between the ground and first floors, these being effectively the “ghosts” of long-demolished public houses. In these, revenant drinkers are alleged to congregate in mutual enjoyment of a form of alcohol that can be by some means fermented from the fungus to produce a rough home-made concoction known as Puck’s Hat Punch. While enjoyably intoxicating in small quantities, it is believed that a prolonged exposure can wreak havoc with the mostly psychologically based “substance” of the phantom form, resulting in unstable physiologies that the sufferer will then have to endure perpetually. A local “character” known as Tommy Mangle-the-Cat is cited as evidence of this effect.
Down on the ground floor, where there may be many dozens of these growths existing undetected by the more prosaic population, it is said that the fungi prefer to root in places that have been associated either with intoxication or with mental illness. Public houses, drug dens, and, above all, psychiatric institutions are thus more than usually prone to infestation, and there have been anecdotal cases of the growths attaching themselves to a living human being’s head, where they can bloom unseen by all but the afflicted party, while that party’s consciousness is horribly afflicted by the visions that the fungus generates. Reportedly, Victorian patricide and fairy-painter Richard Dadd had an enormous “Puck’s Hat” sprouting from his temple and affecting his behaviour tremendously, while it remained predictably invisible to Dadd’s doctors and captors.
The display case containing these specimens appears to be empty, with its contents only viewable when situated on the structure’s upper level.
5. Miscellaneous; found upon both completed floors, in various chambers.
One piece of burned cork, dated around 1910, supposedly used by Charles Chaplin as part of the makeup for his character “The Inebriate,” performed with travelling comedy troupe Fred Karno’s Army during that same year.
One gentleman’s bicycle and two-wheeled trailer, also circa 1910, having no working brakes and being fitted with thick lengths of rope around the wheel-rims rather than the usual rubber tyres.
One printed pamphlet dating from 1738, titled “Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children recommended and enforced in a SERMON preached at NORTHAMPTON on the DEATH Of a very amiable and hopeful CHILD about Five Years old.”
Imaginary children’s book retrieved from dream of school, with green cloth boards and gold inlay illustration depicting a group of children including an older boy wearing a bowler hat. The book is titled The Dead Dead Gang, and its author is, apparently, one Marjorie Miranda Driscoll, a ten-year-old known more usually as “Drowned Marjorie.”
Scrapbook of Princess Diana memorabilia, covering the period 1997–2005, belonging to Roberta Marla Stiles, an eighteen-year-old sex worker and crack cocaine addict who has decorated the book’s cover with a collage of her own design, combining a sunset scene from a Sunday colour supplement with a picture of the late Diana Spencer’s face pasted inexpertly onto the sun.
Artists’ materials, circa 1865, thought to belong to Ernest Vernall, a worker employed in retouching the frescoes decorating the interior of the dome of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Artist’s materials, circa 2015, belonging to Ernest Vernall’s great-great-granddaughter, illustrator Alma Warren.
Sledgehammer, used in steel-drum reconditioning by Ernest Vernall’s great-great-grandson and Alma Warren’s younger brother, Michael.
THE ABOVE EXHIBITS, after cataloguing, have all been returned to the locations where they were discovered, ready and in place for when work once again resumes upon the structure, progressing towards its revised completion date of 2013.
Visits and Departures
Visits
Over the years, several people visited Dr. Lambshead, and saw his cabinet. Few, however, can agree on its dimensions, exact location, or its contents. Sometimes, it isn’t even clear that these visitors actually saw the core collection rather than just an overflow room on the first floor of the house. In three separate journal entries, Lambshead alludes to “a special room for the rubes,” which he set up out of frustration at the number of requests to visit his cabinet. Many times he would relent and allow a visit, only to have his housekeeper lead the party in question to “the Rube Room” and then out the front door again.