Barnaby the Bold was not, traditionally speaking, a very bold ghost. In fact, he was arguably the most timid spirit in the history of the dilapidated mansion, Whisper Wood Manor. This was mostly because Barnaby was entirely headless, a situation that occurred roughly three hundred years ago during a particularly aggressive game of badminton involving a very heavy chandelier. The chandelier won. Since then, Barnaby had spent his centuries hovering in the dusty corridors, tripping over imaginary rugs, and politely asking portraits if they had seen his head, which he described as "rather dashing, with a fine mustache, mostly because I can't remember what it looks like." The problem was, a headless ghost lacks authority. When he tried to boo! someone, it sounded like a wet cough. The local residents of the village below did not fear Barnaby; they used his headless antics as a tourist attraction, calling him "Barnaby the Befuddled." One rainy Tuesday, Barnaby decided he was done with the embarrassment. He was going to find his head, or at least a convincing substitute. He floated down from his attic home, his ethereal white gown collecting spiderwebs, which he tried, and failed, to brush off with a spectral hand that often went right through his own ethereal chest. He began his search in the library, a room filled with books written in languages that haven't been used since the invention of the toaster. He figured his head might be tucked behind a rare edition of "How to Properly Keep Your Head While Others Are Losing Theirs." He hovered towards a dusty corner, pulling a book off the shelf. A thick cloud of dust erupted, causing him to sneeze, which made his entire neckless form vibrate aggressively. "Bless me," he squeaked. A portrait of a dour ancestor, Sir Archibald, seemed to roll its eyes. "Still looking for it, Barnaby? It's been three centuries. I'd have just accepted my fate and worn a lampshade." Barnaby felt a phantom pain in his neck area. "It's a matter of dignity, Archibald. A head is essential for proper haunting. I look like a floating duvet." He continued his search, his neck stump looking quite pristine. He checked the pantry, finding only a jar of pickled gherkins (which he couldn't eat, naturally) and a very startled mouse who was now convinced he had seen a ghost. Then, a brilliant, or perhaps entirely foolish, idea struck him. He needed a head. Any head. He remembered seeing a set of mannequins in the forbidden basement storage room. These were from the 1970s, which meant they had extremely strange hairstyles. Barnaby, being a polite soul, flew down to the basement, apologizing to the spiders as he moved through their webs. The storage room was crammed with forgotten treasures. There, in the corner, was a plastic mannequin head with a mullet. It was terrible. It was perfect. "Sir Mullet," Barnaby whispered, "You shall be my new identity." He tried to place the plastic head on his stump, but a ghost, it seems, has no neck to hold a plastic head. It immediately slipped off and clattered onto the wooden floor. "Bother," Barnaby said, hovering down to retrieve it. He tried again, balancing it carefully. It slid off again. He tried balancing it upside down. "A bit much," he decided, looking at the upside-down face. He tried holding it under his arm, but that made him look too much like that other, more successful headless horseman, and Barnaby didn't even have a horse, just a very lazy ghost-cat named Scramble who never followed him into the cellar. Finally, he gave up on the mullet-head. He needed something more… natural. He hovered back up to the main floor. The mansion was surprisingly active. A group of teenagers, emboldened by their inability to find the supposed ghosts, were having a party in the ballroom. One of them was holding a large, shiny disco ball, which was reflecting the moonlight in spectacular fashion. "Hmm," thought Barnaby, "A shiny, round object." He decided to steal the disco ball. It was a chaotic plan, but a plan nonetheless. He hovered invisibly—or as invisibly as a headless man in a white sheet can be—near the disco ball. As the teenager, a tall kid named Derek, spun around, Barnaby attempted to grab it. Instead, he grabbed Derek's hat. Derek shrieked, "Dude! My hat just got pulled by a ghost! I didn't even see it!" Barnaby, now wearing a baseball cap at a very jaunty angle on his neck stump, felt a surge of pride. "I am intimidating!" he thought, waving his arms. He didn't realize the baseball cap made him look less like a haunting spirit and more like a very enthusiastic tourist who had lost his way. The teenagers, instead of running away, started filming him. "Yo, Headless Guy, do a flip!" another one yelled. Barnaby was flustered. He didn't know how to do a flip. He hadn't even realized he was entirely intangible until he tried to pick up a plastic cup, which slipped through his hand. He tried to mimic a flip, which resulted in him tumbling awkwardly in the air, the baseball cap spinning around his neck. The teenagers cheered. "Best ghost ever! Best Halloween ever!" Barnaby was mortified. "I am a terrifying specter of the night!" he told them, his voice echoing from his empty neck-stump. "I am here to haunt you!" He then accidentally floated directly into a large, decorative vase, getting stuck inside. The teenagers laughed even louder. He was just "The Headless Ghost in the Vase," which, in retrospect, was a great improvement over "The Headless Ghost in the Dust." Barnaby, deciding that his dignity was entirely gone, decided to retreat to the attic. He slid out of the vase, the vase wobbling but not falling, and hovered upward. "This is a catastrophe," he complained to the ceiling. "Three hundred years of training, and I am a novelty act." He spent the rest of the night looking through the old family photo albums, trying to remember what his head looked like. "Was it round? Did I have a beard? Oh, I hope I didn't have a goatee." He felt a little better when he found a picture of himself from 1705. He had a magnificent wig. "Aha! I remember now! The wig was key! I need a wig!" He floated down to the library again, searching for a wig. He found an old dusty wig-stand with a rather sad-looking powdered wig. He quickly picked it up, and miraculously, it hung in the air just above his shoulders. It was a little crooked, and it smelled of 18th-century lavender and despair, but it worked. He looked at himself in the mirror, or at least where he thought he was in the mirror. "Marvelous! Now I am a gentleman!" He floated back towards the ballroom, intending to give a regal, polite, "Good evening" to the party guests. He appeared at the top of the stairs, the wig sitting on his neck, looking quite sophisticated. The teenagers looked up. There was a moment of silence. Then, one of them said, "Dude, he's wearing a wig! That's even funnier!" They started laughing harder. Barnaby was appalled. "It's a wig! It's a very expensive wig!" he shouted. The teenagers thought this was even funnier, thinking it was some kind of elaborate performance art. A young woman named Sarah said, "You know what, he's actually quite polite. Look, he's not even trying to scare us." She held up her phone. "Can you do a little wave?" Barnaby, who was a genuinely polite ghost, waved his hand. The teenagers cheered again. "Go Headless! Go Headless!" Barnaby realized something. He didn't need to be scary. He didn't need a head. He was Barnaby, the entertainer of Whisper Wood. He decided to embrace it. He started floating in circles, letting the wig fly around in the air. He did a little dance, which looked like a mix between a waltz and a spasm. The teenagers were completely enthralled. He felt a different kind of pride. He was bringing joy, or at least amusement. "This," he decided, "is much better than being a scary ghost." He never found his head, but Barnaby the Bold, now known as Barnaby the Brilliant, continued to haunt the mansion. He became famous for his jaunty wig and his very polite, yet entirely invisible, demeanor. The teenagers even started bringing him gifts, like a nice, soft velvet hat for the winter. Barnaby never did get the hang of picking things up, but he was great at balancing things on his neck stump, including the hat, the wig, and, on special occasions, a small vase of flowers. He had learned that being a headless ghost was not about the head you lost, but about the fun you found. The mansion wasn't so scary anymore, and in the end, that was exactly what Barnaby wanted. He would often look at his old, dusty photo album, smile with his empty neck, and say, "I think the wig really suits me." He lived, or rather, existed, happily ever after, or at least until the next chandelier party, which he decided to avoid entirely. "No more chandeliers," he promised himself, "Just the wig, and maybe a nice scarf."
