The acuteness of his senses as described in the opening paragraphs can be likened to that of some of Edgar Allan Poe's characters. As the story progresses, Gilman has dreams of Keziah Mason, Brown Jenkin, Nyarlathotep and an abstract higher dimension, and begins to sleepwalk.
He is troubled by deep mental tension brought on by studying too hard and at one point is forbidden by his professors to further consult Miskatonic's collection of rare books, including the Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon and Unaussprechlichen Kulten. The skeleton of an enormous deformed rat with hints of human or primate anatomy is soon discovered within the attic's flooring this baffles academia and disturbs the demolition workers so greatly that they light thanksgiving candles within a nearby church in celebration of the creature's demise.Ĭharacters Walter Gilman įormerly of Haverhill, Massachusetts, Walter Gilman came to Miskatonic to study "non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics", which he linked to the "fantastic legends of elder magic". These items are put on display in Miskatonic University's museum, where they continue to mystify scholars. A strange stone-statuette of the star-headed "Elder Things" from Gilman's dreams is also discovered. A space between the walls is found filled with children's bones, a sacrificial knife and a bowl made of some metal which scientists are unable to identify. Workmen sent to raze the building years later find Keziah's skeleton and her books on black magic. The house is condemned by the building inspector. The landlord soon abandons the house and evicts his tenants.
The next night, Elwood suddenly witnesses Brown Jenkin eating its way out of Gilman's chest. He tells fellow boarder Frank Elwood his horrific story. As he awakens, Gilman hears an unearthly sound that leaves him deaf. He thwarts Keziah by strangling her, but Brown Jenkin bites through the child's wrist to complete the ritual and escapes into a triangular abyss. On Walpurgis Night, Gilman dreams that both Keziah and Brown Jenkin are sacrificing the kidnapped child in a bizarre ritual. He awakes to find mud on his feet and the news of his involved kidnapping in the city's newspaper. Gilman's odd experiences seem to escalate as he dreams that he signs the "Book of Azathoth" under the commands of Keziah, Brown Jenkin, and the infamous " Black Man." Gilman is later taken to Azathoth's throne at the "Center of Chaos" by this group and is forced to be an accomplice in the kidnapping of an infant. The statue is made of unknown materials and a strange kind of alloy. In other dreams, Gilman is taken to a city of the " Elder Things" and even brings back evidence that he has actually been there-a miniature statue of an "Elder Thing" which he breaks off from a balustrade within the city. Gilman also has nightly experiences involving Keziah and her rat-bodied, human-faced familiar, Brown Jenkin, which he believes are not dreams at all. Several times, his dreaming-self encounters bizarre clusters of "iridescent, prolately spheroidal bubbles", as well as a rapidly changing polyhedral-figure, both of which appear sapient. Among the elements, both organic and inorganic, he perceives shapes that he innately recognizes as entities which appear and disappear instantaneously and at random. Gilman begins experiencing bizarre dreams in which he seems to float without physical form through an otherworldly space of unearthly geometry and indescribable colors and sounds. Gilman theorizes that the structure can enable travel from one plane or dimension to another. The dimensions of Gilman's attic room are unusual and seem to conform to a kind of unearthly geometry.
Gilman discovers that, for the better part of two centuries, many of the attic's occupants have died prematurely. The house once harboured Keziah Mason, an accused witch who disappeared mysteriously from a Salem jail in 1692. Walter Gilman, a student of mathematics and folklore at Miskatonic University, rents an attic room in the "Witch House", a house in Arkham, Massachusetts that is rumored to be cursed.