The Specialist's Hat, by Kelly Link

The Specialist's Hat is another story in Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen collection, and it won the World Fantasy Award for 1999.  The hat is indeed a nasty thing, what with it's making noises like "an agouti" and grunting and such, but the setting is highly fascinating--a huge old mansion with eight three-story chimneys.  Cool indeed, and they have interesting secrets.  The story is well constructed and flows nicely, so no surprise it won.  I still like my fiction a bit on the harder side, so I will give it 3 stars to be diplomatic.