Fallen in Fredericksburg Read online

  For my mom, whose spirit will always be close by

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  COPYRIGHT

  Greg Troutman, Julie Kobayashi, and I were totally killing it during band practice one afternoon the first week of December, down in the basement of my uncle’s junk store. And by killing it, I mean we were really crushing it. And by really crushing it, I mean Greg and I had managed to tune our guitars pretty close to the way they’re supposed to be tuned, and I was mostly keeping up on rhythm guitar with the tempo that Julie set on keyboards, and Greg was mostly hitting the right notes on his guitar solo, and I’d been able to mostly stay in tenor when I sang, though my voice kept straining to jump back up into boy-soprano range.

  Boy soprano is the same as girl soprano except that I’m not a girl and it kind of seems important to make that distinction.

  Anyway, we were killing it and crushing it, but then dogs started barking — a lot of dogs, the really loud kind. So loud that pretty soon we could barely hear ourselves playing.

  Greg stopped first. “Oh man. Just when we were sounding good.”

  “Yeah,” I said, or shouted. “Really good.”

  Julie kept playing but she was the only one, so in a minute she quit, too. “What did you say?” she shouted. “I can’t hear because of the dogs!”

  There weren’t any dogs where we were, of course — in our basement practice room in this really old building in downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia. The barking was coming from next door at a place called Dog and Suds, a dog-grooming business that shared a wall with the Kitchen Sink. We’d sometimes heard them before, but never this loud.

  “Come on!” I shouted. “Let’s go upstairs and see what’s going on over there. Maybe Uncle Dex can tell us something.”

  “What?” Julie shouted again. I figured she must have gone temporarily deaf, so I hand-signaled what we were doing. She turned off her keyboard and followed us, hands pressed over her ears.

  It wasn’t much quieter upstairs, but at least we could hear ourselves when we spoke. Uncle Dex, too. “Guess those dogs next door finally had enough of your playing,” he joked.

  Greg laughed, but I said, “Not funny.”

  Julie didn’t seem to think it was funny, either. But she still had her hands over her ears, so maybe she hadn’t heard him.

  “Happens every once in a while,” Uncle Dex said. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t have anything to do with your band. Actually, they started a couple of weeks ago and have been getting progressively louder. You guys came in at just the right time for the crescendo.”

  “What’s a crescendo?” Greg asked.

  “It’s a musical term,” Julie explained. “For when music or whatever sound you’re talking about gets louder and louder and louder and finally hits the peak of loudness.”

  “So what started it?” I asked.

  Uncle Dex shrugged. “Hard to say. In fact, I can’t say at all. Maybe you could go ask Mrs. Strentz.”

  “The lady who owns Dog and Suds?” I asked.

  “She’s the one,” Uncle Dex said. “Now if you’ll excuse me …” He picked up a couple of earplugs from the front desk and stuck them in his ears.

  “Got any more of those?” Greg asked, but Uncle Dex just smiled and shook his head.

  “What are we going to do now?” Julie asked.

  “I guess what Uncle Dex said,” I answered. “Go ask Mrs. Strentz what’s going on.”

  “And see if she can get those dogs to shut up,” Greg said.

  “Don’t you think she would have done that already if she could?” Julie asked.

  “Well, at least let’s go outside where it might be a little quieter,” I said, so we did.

  As it turned out, we didn’t have to go next door to talk to Mrs. Strentz because she was already out on the sidewalk, too, standing close to the curb on Caroline Street, which is one of the main streets in downtown Fredericksburg. She was glaring back at her own store and muttering to herself.

  “Hi, Mrs. Strentz,” I said, walking up to her. She was around my mom’s age, and she looked tired, the same as my mom often does, though my mom’s reason is that she has MS. Mrs. Strentz was probably tired from wrestling dogs into their dog baths all day.

  I introduced myself. “I’m Anderson Carter. Uncle Dex is my uncle.”

  Mrs. Strentz nodded. “Nice to meet you, Anderson. I knew your Pop Pop, too.”

  Pop Pop was my mom and Uncle Dex’s dad. He used to own the Kitchen Sink before he died. I gestured to my friends and said, “And this is Greg and this is Julie.”

  Mrs. Strentz nodded at them, then she went back to glaring at the Dog and Suds. I called it glaring anyway. Julie insisted later that what Mrs. Strentz was doing was glowering, but I was pretty sure those were the same thing. Julie always liked to use the bigger word, though, given the opportunity, or even when there wasn’t an opportunity.

  “What’s going on with your dogs?” I asked Mrs. Strentz, pressing on even though it was obvious she wanted to be left alone.

  She sighed. “They’re going crazy, that’s what’s going on with the dogs.”

  “Uncle Dex said it happens sometimes,” I persisted, hoping she’d at least tell us something. “How long does it usually last?”

  “It happens the same time every year. Started a couple weeks ago. And it lasts until the middle of December, so long enough to chase a lot of my customers away,” Mrs. Strentz said. “Which isn’t so great for business.”

  “What happens then?” Greg asked.

  Mrs. Strentz gave a little shrug. “Then they stop barking. Or at least they go back to their normal barking, which is music to my ears.”

  “But you don’t know what gets them started?” Julie asked.

  Mrs. Strentz brushed a lock of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. She had on her yellow dog-washing gloves. “I have a theory,” she said.

  “Do you mind telling us your theory?” Greg asked. He seemed genuinely curious. I just wanted her to get the dogs quiet, though it didn’t look as if that was going to happen any time soon.

  Mrs. Strentz pulled up her gloves like she was getting ready to march back into the Dog and Suds and fight somebody.

  “A ghost,” she said. “That’s my theory. An annoying, frustrating, restless, hostile, belligerent, obnoxious, irritating, dog-agitating ghost.”

  “Oh no!” I blurted out. Another ghost already? We hadn’t even taken anything out of that mysterious trunk in Uncle Dex’s basement, which was how things had gotten started with the first three ghosts we’d encountered.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Strentz said back. “Come on inside and see for yourselves.”

  Julie was the first one in. Greg followed her because Greg always follows her. I hung back until Mrs. Strentz motioned me to come, too. She practically had to drag me inside where the dog barking had gotten even louder, which didn’t seem possible.

&nbs
p; Then again, a lot of things lately that didn’t seem possible had turned out to be not only possible, but all too real.

  As I stumbled through the door to the Dog and Suds I muttered to myself, “Well, here we go again.”

  The dogs continued barking like crazy for a few minutes longer, and then, as suddenly as they’d started, they stopped. The silence felt almost as loud — or I guess intense — as the noise had been just a minute before.

  “That’s strange,” Mrs. Strentz said. “I don’t remember that ever happening before.”

  We were in the reception area where people sat on benches with their dogs, waiting for Mrs. Strentz or one of her workers to take them into a back room or down into the basement for their baths and haircuts and nail trims and whatever else they did in there. Maybe doggie massage. The reception area had every kind of leash and collar and dog sweater and dog toy and dog treat imaginable.

  Greg picked up a furry purple dog collar and tried it on. “Hey,” he said. “We could all wear these when we perform. Sort of our signature.”

  “And change our name to the Dogs of War?” I asked.

  “I think that name’s already taken,” Julie said, not getting that I was being sarcastic. I made a note to myself to work on that — on being more obvious when trying to say something sarcastic.

  “I should keep you kids around all the time,” Mrs. Strentz said. “You must be good luck. Maybe you chased the ghost away.”

  “How did we do that?” Greg asked, putting the collar back.

  “Wish I knew,” Mrs. Strentz said, and then she said it again. “I wish I knew.”

  We hung out at the Dog and Suds for a little while with Mrs. Strentz, looking around upstairs and then heading down to the basement, where there were several cages, and stainless steel tables for washing the dogs, and hoses and a drain on the floor. It felt like a dungeon, but the dogs all seemed happy enough now — and still relatively quiet. I was surprised that there were only three of them, as loud as they’d been when they were barking. One was a black Labrador, one was a dachshund, and one was a mutt beagle. Greg and Julie went right over and petted them, and even let the dogs lick their hands and faces.

  I like dogs okay, but I’m not exactly thrilled about the idea of an animal slobbering on me, so I kept my distance. Also, I don’t like to get dog hair all over my clothes. Julie and Greg didn’t seem to mind much. Julie even kissed one.

  Then she turned to Mrs. Strentz and asked, “Can you tell us more about the dog-barking issue?”

  “Well, there’s all the barking, of course — and it definitely gets louder over time. But something else, too,” Mrs. Strentz said. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s just that, well, things seem to go missing and I look all over for them and they end up being right in front of me the whole time. And some mornings when I come into work, things seem to have been moved around, rearranged, or that’s how it seems at first — only they haven’t been. Also, it seems darker, like the lights are flickering off and on, even though they’re not. It’s like if you’re blinking a lot, only you’re not aware of it. And the dogs go crazy, of course. You’ve heard that — though I still don’t understand why they stopped. I’m just hoping that they don’t start up again when you kids leave.”

  “Anything else?” Julie asked. “I mean, have you ever seen or heard this ghost you say is here somewhere?”

  Mrs. Strentz sighed. “Now I know you kids think I’m just crazy, don’t you? Thinking it’s a ghost.”

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Strentz,” Greg reassured her. “Not at all. We believe in ghosts. Definitely. In fact —”

  I cut him off before he said anything else that might give away the truth about us and ghosts — or at least ghosts of war: that we could talk to them, and had become friends with three of them so far. “In fact, we named our band the Ghosts of War,” I said.

  “Nice,” Mrs. Strentz said. “Anyway, there is something else. A couple of things, actually. I feel as though someone is watching me. It’s such a strong feeling that I keep turning to look, only nobody’s there. A few times I heard footsteps — upstairs when I was in the basement, and in the basement when I was upstairs. At least three people I’ve had working for me over the years reported the same thing — hearing footsteps, feeling as though they’re being watched.”

  “Pretty spooky,” Greg said.

  “And noisy,” Mrs. Strentz added.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Just one thing,” she said. “A voice. Only a few times, but I heard it. Or thought I heard it. Or imagined or hallucinated I heard it.”

  “What’s it say?” Julie asked.

  Mrs. Strentz hesitated, then answered. “Where’s my little brother.”

  We waited to see if there was anything more. “Is that it?” Julie asked. “Where’s my little brother?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Strentz said. “Only less like a question, and more like an order.”

  “Like, ‘Where’s my little brother!’ ” Greg commanded.

  Mrs. Strentz nodded, then led us back upstairs. She thanked us for coming in, and then gave us each a hug as she also thanked us for getting the dogs to stop barking and howling. “Even if it’s just for this little while,” she said.

  They started right back up again the minute we left.

  Uncle Dex still had his earplugs in, but he took them out to ask us what we’d found out from Mrs. Strentz. We had to shout to tell him — or at least we did until he led us over to some chairs near the far wall, which was the wall between the Kitchen Sink and the Dog and Suds. The minute we sat down over there, the barking subsided again, like a wave receding from the beach, only not coming back in right away.

  “Interesting,” Uncle Dex said, though we didn’t know if he meant what Mrs. Strentz had told us or the dogs suddenly quieting down.

  “What is?” Greg asked.

  “Well, she says it happens around this time every year, right? Starting the middle of November?” Uncle Dex asked.

  “Right,” I said.

  “And the middle of November — November 17, 1862, to be exact — was the date the first wave of Union forces arrived across the Rappahannock River from here, in Stafford County — preparing to attack Fredericksburg,” Uncle Dex continued.

  “Uh, right,” I said. “We studied it in school in our unit on the Civil War, but I don’t remember the exact date.”

  Julie interrupted me. “That is the correct date,” she said. “General Burnside had just been given command of Union forces and marched his troops to Stafford County, like you said. It was supposed to be a sneak attack — they would cross the river into Fredericksburg and then march fifty miles south to Richmond, which was the Confederate capital, and there wouldn’t be anybody to stop them.”

  “How come?” Greg asked.

  “Because Robert E. Lee and the Confederate army thought the Union troops were still way west of here, near the Shenandoah Mountains,” Julie said. “Only their big surprise plan didn’t work out, because General Burnside and his troops couldn’t cross the river. Turns out, all the bridges had been blown up weeks before — just in case the Union ever tried anything like that. So General Burnside and a hundred thousand of his men were just stuck on the Stafford County side of the Rappahannock for three weeks, waiting on the general in charge of supplies back in Washington, DC, to send down pontoons so they could build temporary bridges. That gave Lee plenty of time to find out what was going on and move his Confederate troops to Fredericksburg.”

  Greg wanted to know what pontoons were and Julie quickly explained. “They’re these long, boat-looking things that float,” she said. “The supply troops transported hundreds of them here on wagons. They weighed, like, a ton each — big enough to hold the weight of troops and horses and wagons and cannons. The idea was to lay the pontoons side-by-side all the way across the river and nail boards on top of them to build temporary bridges.”

  Greg and I looked at her, impressed once again by how smart she was. And I was sup
posed to be the big history buff. I actually knew all that, too, but remembering all the details, well, nobody could do that quite like Julie. Uncle Dex was impressed, as well.

  “And,” Uncle Dex continued again, “I’m pretty sure the barking in years past went on — well, off and on — until the middle of December, which is a long time to have to listen to that much howling, even from the place next door.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Mrs. Strentz told us that, too. But so what?”

  “So that’s when the First Battle of Fredericksburg actually took place,” Julie responded. “Not until the middle of December. Starting on December 11, in fact, when the Army of the Potomac — that was the biggest branch of the Union army — was finally able to cross the river. The actual battle was on December 13.”

  “And ending on December 15 with Burnside ordering the Union army to retreat back across the river,” Uncle Dex finished. “Which is about when the dogs next door stop making their infernal racket, or at least that’s how it’s been in the past. Don’t know why I didn’t think about this before. So could be what you have here isn’t just a ghost, but a ghost from the Civil War.”

  I swallowed nervously. “Uh, does that mean you believe in ghosts, Uncle Dex?”

  He laughed. “In a town with as much history as this one, I guess you’d be crazy not to. But who knows? Maybe those dogs just don’t like the change in season and want to let everybody know it.”

  Julie, who is one of the most serious people I know, had been working on being not quite so serious, and when we got back down to the basement she told us a joke.

  “I bet you guys don’t know why ghosts make bad liars.”

  Greg and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  Julie got this big grin on her face. “Because you can see right through them!”