The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

The painting associated with the installation depicted a teapot, flame spurting from its spout, its body seemingly bloody. It rested on a mound of what might be tentacles or intestines, though they had a machinic aspect as well, and at least one of them terminated in a long-fingered, sharp-clawed hand. There was no signature that I could see, though the technique recalled for me the work of Scott Eagle, or Scott Aigle (as the French call him). The frame was irregular, strangely patched on one side. The longer I looked at it, the more I came to feel that the artwork did not end with the painting proper but extended into this frame. I heard, when I approached the painting, a strange humming, as if I might turn it over to find its reverse swarming with bees. But perhaps this was a quality of the room tone and not of the painting itself.

THERE WAS, BELOW the painting, what at first appeared to be a poem. A series of words, in any case. I read it, but once I had finished, found that I could not remember what it had said, nor, indeed, make any proper sense of it. I read it again, and a pressure began within my head, which, rightly or wrongly, I ascribed to the poem. I was tempted to read it a third time, this time aloud, but resisted, vaguely afraid of what might happen to me if I did.

And what was that at the bottom of the wall, that strange grouping of blood-red, unidentifiable objects? I crouched and examined them, picked one up and turned it round and about in my hand. It was like a small stone, but soft, and made of a substance I did not recognize.

I followed the line of objects back to the altar, for I had now begun in earnest to think of it as an altar. In the place of wooden spindles or legs, it rested on four simulacra of arms, lacquered. These supported a bottom platter, round, upon which rested sets of false (so I assumed) teeth, arranged in two rows. A top platter was cracquelured over with dried blood, and on this, other platters, other inexplicable disks, and finally, at the top, a glass bell, containing flecks of something like ice. Riding within the ice was an object of uncertain design.

What was the object? I could make out aspects of it, had something of a grasp of its shape and color, but still could not determine what it was. Truth be told, I remained unsure whether it should be considered art or something else, something ritualized and potentially threatening.

Kneel, the base of the altar commanded me. But I did not kneel. Instead I remained standing, hunched and leaning over the altar, my face nearly touching the glass bell. And then, on a whim, I reached up and lifted it away.

Detail shot of Eagle’s art installation

And here, I am afraid to admit, I suffered another lacuna, another moment of loss. There are things I remember. A roaring sound, but distant, as if miles away, as if there were still time to find shelter from whatever was coming. A horrible stench, like the air itself had been scorched. Brief flashes of motion and light, coming initially from the painting but quickly spreading all around me. And then nothing.

I returned to consciousness in the bushes next to one wall of the estate, unsure of how I had arrived there. One side of my body was sore, covered with scratch marks and scabs. My earlobe was stiff with dried blood, though I found no sign of any injury or wound. My tongue was scraped raw and sat heavy in my mouth.

When I stumbled back into the house, I discovered several days had passed and I had been replaced in my project of evaluating the collection.

When asked to justify my absence, first by my replacement and then by my betters in the organization, I recounted all that had happened. And yet, no matter how I searched, no matter where I looked in the galleries, I could find no hidden entry or door. I did my best to draw what I had seen, what I had perceived, but my interlocutors remained incredulous. There was, they told me, no secret room, no private altar of forearms and blood and teeth; I had dreamed it; I had imagined it.

When they told me this enough times, I stopped trying to convince them. Yes, I conceded, it was not real. I had merely fallen and hit my head. Nothing happened. I saw nothing.

BUT, OF COURSE, I had seen what I had seen, and as time went on, I found the memory of what I had seen working away at me. I saw it there before me: a painting of tubes and tentacles, an unknown object on a strange altar, balanced atop teeth and arms. And sometimes, in my thoughts, the teeth begin to chatter and the arms flex and stretch, the fingers moving, calling me, beckoning me. And though I had originally been repulsed, I now found myself more and more attracted, more and more drawn in.