“They get more attention with negativity,” Ross explained. “If we do something different, if we make them laugh, I think we’ll have a good chance at winning.” Gill stared at him.
“We make them laugh?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes!”
“We’re ghosts,” Gill said flatly, pointing to the deep slash across Ross’ throat. “Our whole thing is to scare people. Everything we do is negative.”
“We could change that,” Ross pointed out, cheerfully. “I don’t see why we should be scaring people. Why not make their day? Why not make them laugh?”
A sharp, brassy laugh exploded through the hall. “You’re going to win the bet by making humans laugh?” Peter jeered, appearing from through the wall. “You two are more foolish than I thought!” Alfred appeared behind him, snickering. “Pack your things, gentlemen for in the morning, you shall be gone! I hope you enjoy the wine cellar!” The men’s laughter echoed as they floated past Ross and Gill and disappeared through the far wall.
“You know what?” Gill said, turning to Ross. “I think I have an idea. Follow me.” He grabbed Ross’ arm and led him through the bedroom and the dining room to the landing stairs above the foyer. “Now we wait.” Ross floated off the landing to pace in front of the grand doors.
“What are we to do when the humans get here?” he asked, not bothering to look at Gill.
“We humor them,” he answered.
“But how?” Gill thought for a moment. As he opened his mouth to speak, Ross jumped away from the door and ran up the stairs. “They’re here,” he whispered. The ghostly men waited at the top of the stairs for a minute, eagerly awaiting the humans’ arrival. After they did not come, Gill turned to Ross.
“What are they doing?” he asked. Ross jumped from the landing and flew to the window. He watched the humans for a beat, then ran back up the stairs.
“They’re walking.”
“How many are there?” Ross jumped from the landing and landed in front of the window once again. He took a moment to count, then raced back up the stairs.
“Two.”
“What do they look like?” Ross began to climb the railing again, readying himself to jump. Gill grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the floor. “Never mind. I’ll find out sooner or later.” The knob began to turn on the door below and both men’s heads shot to look at it. “Places!” Gill shouted.
“Wha-?” Ross began to ask, looking around frantically.
“The tapestry!” Gill cried. Ross nodded and both men jumped into the family tapestry hanging above the landing.

The front door opened and two teenagers, a boy and a girl, walked into the foyer. The boy shivered, looking around the empty room. “I still can’t believe you got me to do this,” He said, turning to the girl.
“Alex, with all your family drama, I figured you needed a night away,” she explained as she started to climb the stairs.
“I do need a night away, Olivia,” The boy, Alex, argued, following her up the stairs. “But not in a haunted house!” The girl, Olivia, turned back to him.
“Grow up, Alex. It’s just a house.” She reached the top of the stairs and stood in front of the tapestry, inspecting it. She stared into the eyes of the patriarch, examining the stitching and unknowingly staring Gill in the face. He knew he should do something, but what?
Alex joined her, glancing back towards the entrance before he looked into the eyes of the mother figure and the eyes of Ross.
“C’mon,” Olivia said, turning towards the long hallway to her left. “I want to explore.” As she began to walk away, Ross panicked. Alex leaned towards the tapestry, running his fingers over the cloth. Ross stuck his head through the fabric and the boy’s fingers, his mouth open and preparing to say something. Alex screamed, his face turning ghostly pale and fled towards Olivia.
“There was a face!” he panted.
“Of course there was a face, there were faces in the tapestry!” she said, refusing to acknowledge his fears. “Let’s go.” She led him out of earshot of the ghosts.

“Well,” Ross said, emerging from behind the tapestry. “That was a bust.” He kicked at the loose carpet.
“Do you think so?” Gill shot back, floating out from behind the tapestry. He sighed. “Making them laugh doesn’t work if they’re already scared.”
“The girl wasn’t scared,” Ross pointed out.
“But the boy was,” Gill argued. “The bet was to get a rise out of both of them. It doesn’t work if one of them denies our existence.” The men thought for a moment.
“If we make both of them know we’re here,” Ross said finally, speaking slowly as he formed the idea. “Then they’ll be working on equal ground. They’ll know for sure that we exist and we can interact with them freely.”
“How would we do that, though?” Gill mused.
“We walk down the hall and introduce ourselves,” Ross shouts. “It’s perfect!” Gill stared at him.
“Are you stu-” He paused, thinking over the proposition. “I think that might work.”
Ross followed as Gill led him through the wall parallel to the hallway the kids were walking in. They turned the corner and Gill stopped. “If we enter the hallway here,” he stuck his hand through the wall. “When they get closer, we walk past them and introduce ourselves. Got it?” Ross nodded.
“Got it.” Footsteps echoed in the hallway next to them.
“Now.” The ghosts emerged from the hallway and began walking. Sun streamed through the large windows and filled the hall.

Something moved in the corner of Alex’s eye.
“Did you see that?” he asked, pointing to the approximate location of where Gill just was.
“Stop expecting to see something,” Olivia replied. “You’re just scaring yourself.” Alex shook his head.
“No,” he argued. “I’m sure I saw something.” he sneezed as they walked through a cloud of dust. Olivia shivered.
“Did it suddenly get much colder in here?” she asked. He nodded.
“I felt that too.” She grabbed his arm.
“There’s probably a furnace room or something. Let’s go.”

She dragged him down the hall, through a door, and out of sight of the ghosts. Gill sighed again. “There is a limit to what two ghosts can do,” He said, sitting, his back against the wall.
“I’m over here,” Ross said, appearing on the floor next to him as the sun went behind a cloud. “And we can’t give up now! If we lose, Peter and Alfred will never let us hear the end of it. Eternity is a long time.”
“If you think about it,” Gill mused, more to himself than to continue the conversation. “Eternity is less of a long, never ending chunk of time, but more of many smaller bits of time. Each having its important moments, both sad and joyous. If you break it down further-”
“I don’t think it’s the time for your rambling,” Ross interrupted. “I’m sorry Gill.”
“It’s alright,” he said, sighing. “You’re right. We should be doing something more productive.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Winning a bet.” Gill stared through the window, at the easterly, or westerly, sun as the clouds floated by, occasionally blocking it from view.
“Puppets!” Ross shouted. Gill jumped from his seat, his body floating a foot off the ground.
“What?!” He dusted himself off and brought his feet to rest on the floor again.
“Puppets,” Ross repeated, innocently. “Humans like puppets, right? So let’s make some.”
“How?” There were no puppets, that Gill could think of, in the house. They could probably find them in the outside world, but he and Ross couldn’t leave the house. They were bound to it.
“The hunting room.” Gill stared at Ross.
“There are no puppets in the hunting room,” Gill pointed out. Ross shook his head.
“Puppets, no,” he said. “But there are things we can use for puppets.”
“Like what?”
“Taxidermy,” Ross said. “There’s that skull the owner found in the theater in the woods. Not to mention all of the dear heads.”
“You’re sure this won’t scare them more?” Gill asked. Ross shook his head.
“No, humans like deer now-a-days, and not only just to eat. Have you ever seen Bambi?” Ross mused. Gill frowned.
“What’s Bambi?” He asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ross replied. “I just know that humans like deer.”
“Very well,” Gill said. “Let’s go!”
The hunting room was on the third floor, directly above the kitchen. It took no time at all for Ross and Gill to reach the fur rug and the walls decorated with taxidermied animal heads. Gill floated about four feet off the ground and inspected the wall of heads and antlers.
“Which one would you like?” He asked Ross. He heard the rattle of a case opening.
“I don’t think I’ll take one of the wall ones,” Ross replied, holding up an old skull for Gill to look at. “I like this one. I think it’s charming.” Gill chuckled a little to himself.
“It reminds me of you,” he joked.
“I will choose to take this as a compliment,” Ross replied, puffing out his chest. “Which one or ones will you take?” Gill studied the wall again.
“I like this one,” He said, pointing to a crosseyed buck with short antlers. He sank his ghostly body into it, wiggling the deer’s mouth with his fingers.
“It looks just like you,” Ross giggled, fiddling with the skull’s jaw. As the ghosts continued messing with their props, soft voices began to be heard from down the hall.

“You’ve had your exploring,” Alex protested, following Olivia down the endless maze of hallways. “Can we go now?”
“No,” Olivia argued. “There are still rooms we haven’t seen.” Alex groaned.
“Like what?” He asked. Olivia opened the door.
“Like this,” She said, revealing the room full of severed heads.
“No,” Alex argued, his eyes widening with every animal head he saw. “No way. There’s no way I’m going in there!” Olivia laughed.
“Get over it!” she said. “Come on!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room. “See? It’s not so bad.”
“Nope,” Alex argued. “This is terrible.” He turned around himself, staring at the walls. Suddenly, a skull rose off of the shelf and started floating towards him. Alex screamed, jumping towards Olivia.
“You are such a-” she started, turning around. She shrieked as she saw the skull. She and Alex backed towards the wall. There was an odd, groaning sound and Olivia and Alex turned around. They were met with the face of a deer with its glass eyes rolling back and its mouth hanging open. Oliva and Alex grabbed each other, shrieking louder than any human should and ran. They breezed down the two flights of stairs, through the maze of hallways, and out the front door.

Ross and Gill watched through the window as the humans jumped into their car and peeled out of the driveway. The ghosts turned to each other, both noticing a glowing hue beginning to glow within the other.
“Well,” Gill said. “It appears that we’ve won the bet.”