The Stories

By Caroline Muntjewerf

Is it quick reads you're after? On train, boat or plane? Or just at home with a cuppa on the couch. A variety of short stories of fiction bundled into one exciting and entertaining book. Don't miss out on this little gem!
Go on, enter a forbidden Room and find a mysterious clue. Gemma is on a search for her clue. A murderous event determines who inherits. Or are you more partial to vampires? Then Horror is what you're looking for. Is French bread in Germany really tasty? What about the two little brothers playing hide-and-seek. Will they find each other? New Zealand seems the best place to meet 'the love of one's life'. And many good things have come from Forbidden Love. But has this one? A Treasure can be found in this storybook as it looks back on World Championships in Germany. A Bookshop on the brink of bankruptcy, but an owner holding on to familiar ways. Wise trees, a refugee lost. And yes, there are two great Christmas stories for the kids to enjoy as well!
So grab your copy now. Scroll to the BUY button and get your storybook today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caroline Muntjewerf
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9789083396446

Caroline Muntjewerf

Caroline Muntjewerf, an author of fictional standalone novels, was born and raised in the Netherlands. She mostly worked as a care-worker in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Germany where she lived for several years. Around the turn of the century she started writing creatively after she'd kept travel journals while traveling / backpacking through quite a few countries where she met people from a variety of cultures and experienced their different countries. Back home in The Netherlands, she kept writing and working as an indie author. Apart from creating stories, she has written two screenplays as well, based on two of her books. Find out about her novels on this page or check out her website https://cmuntjewerf.com

Book preview

The Stories

~.~.~.~

Caroline Muntjewerf

€oinyard Publishing®

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The right of Caroline Muntjewerf to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All Rights Reserved

ISBN/EAN: 978-90-833964-4-6

Text Copyright © 2020 Caroline Muntjewerf

Photo cover design © 2014 Caroline Muntjewerf

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Table Of Contents

The Room

Gemma Got To Her Feet

Suicidal

The Love Of Her Life

The Cabin

French Bread In Germany

Homeless

The Bookshop

Ein Kerlchen von drei und ein Kerlchen von fünf

A small boy of three and a small boy of five

Santa In Broken Cross

Horror

Verbotene Liebe

Forbidden Love

Murder

Hitch~hiker

Tree Wisdom

Smart Phone

Orange Wave in Stuttgart

Mrs Pretty

Refugee

Treasure

Arranged Marriage

A Christmas Story

Vlokken

The Room

The first time I came to the castle, was when it had recently opened as a museum of local history. This was four years ago. Since then, I’d visited here several times as I found the exhibits not only interesting but intriguing as well. To think that gowns on display were worn by women over a 100 years ago, that someone had been wafting through castle corridors in them. Utensils and cups beautifully crafted. Utensils people used to eat their dinner and drinking from the exquisitely hand-crafted glasses. I could stroll through the castle for hours, the museum with its changing exhibits. I was always intrigued by a particular door on the top floor of one of the towers. It displayed a ‘Private’ sign and I had long wondered what could be behind it. Was it private? Did someone live there? Or was the space behind the locked door merely used for storage? On a few occasions, I found myself looking furtively over my shoulder while trying to find out if the door was unlocked. It never was.

Outside, when passing the castle I sometimes looked up at those windows that held the locked room behind them, trying to discover what could be kept there. Once I thought I saw movement behind those windows and strained my eyes to see who was up there, only to realize it was the reflection of the clouds that had caused the optical illusion.

On a given day I found myself once more on the top floor of the tower in the museum and noticed the door, that had always been tightly shut, just barely visible ajar ... I glanced around me, there was one other person in the room looking at the exhibits. Looking with a sense of curiosity rather than an interest in age-old artefacts. He didn’t linger long and soon left the room. I swiftly made my way to the door before other visitors might enter. I glanced over my shoulders once more and then pushed the door open. I quickly stepped from the exhibits room into the forbidden room, quietly closing the door behind me. I turned around and with my back to the door I’d just come through, my eyes caught sight of white sheets. White sheets that covered the many large objects underneath in this circular room. For a moment, I felt disappointed. Was that all? Was it only a storage room?

But what had I expected to see in a museum of local history? I strolled passed the covered objects, here and there lifting the sheet slightly to see what it was hiding; furniture from a bygone era. I resigned, disappointed by the lack of hidden treasures. I gave the room another glance and then moved back to the door to exit, only to see the room had curiously manifested another door.

Two doors were facing me.

I was baffled. What was the one I had come through? Had that second door been there all along? I could not recall. I tried to remember what I had first seen when I entered this forbidden room.

With my back to the circular wall, I edged along but could not remember the first object I had laid my eyes on. With an uneasy feeling, I stood between the two doors, trying to decide which one to open so I could leave this room, where my feelings of inquisitiveness had been replaced by trepidation. My hand reached for the doorknob of the door to my right. I slowly opened it, listened to make sure no one would see me come out of this forbidden room. I stepped through and the door closed behind me.

What I saw in front of me was not the room with the exhibits.

I had chosen the wrong door.

Eager to leave this room I reached for a doorknob only to find a smooth surface. A slight panic overcame me. Through a small top-window, dusky daylight fell into this room. The light was sufficient for me to see that the doorknob on this side of the door was missing. Only a key-hole allowed me to look into the forbidden room. Should I yell? Would someone hear me?

I sighed and turned around.

Fright gushed through my body when the eyes of a man looked straight into mine.

I screeched a suffocated scream.

Then came the realization. I looked into the eyes of Hitler as he stood there in a life-size painting. My whole being was trembling. It felt as if he could just step out of his frame and cause more harm. I was desperate to leave these eerie surroundings, but my curiosity got the better of me.

He wasn’t real.

I looked about me and saw a few more objects covered by sheets that had turned greyish.

People hadn’t been here for years.

Dust fluffed up in the narrow stream of daylight when I took a sheet and pulled it aside. A desk appeared. My eyes slid along its surface and fell on a few initials carved on its corner, the initials A.H.. Beside them, the swastika, made so unpopular by the Nazi’s.

The drawers of the solid wooden desk were begging to be opened but apprehension stopped me. I would not want to lay my bare hands on something that had been touched by a dictator like Hitler.

I searched in my bag for a tissue and with that, I opened the top drawer.

It was empty. I looked more closely but didn’t see anything inside.

The second drawer revealed the same result.

When I opened the bottom drawer a snippet of paper in the far corner drew my attention. I pulled it and an envelope appeared.

The envelope showed the same initials as those on the desk. No more.

On the back of the envelope, the initials E.B. were scribbled. I lifted the flap of the envelope and a letter came into view, a yellowish sheet of paper with lines in faded ink. I carefully pulled the letter out when something dropped on the floor. I looked down to find a photograph lying by my feet. A small black and white photo with crenulated edges. I reached for the photograph and picked it up.

It showed a blonde lady, smiling broadly. Next to her, a large German Shepherd. On the back were the same initials as on the back of the envelope, and a heart. My eyes glanced at the lines in the letter.

‘Liebling … ’ it started.

My German wasn’t up to scratch. I put the letter and the photo back in the envelope.

I hesitated and then dropped it in de side-pocket of my bag.

I closed the drawer, it creaked slightly, then looked around the room.

More objects were stored here. I felt ill at ease in this room with the image of the dictator breathing down my neck but continued to satisfy my curiosity. I pulled aside another sheet and found a big wooden armchair upholstered with brown, cracked leather. The back showed a swastika, carved into the wooden framework.

The object next to it was smaller in size. It didn’t look like a chair from what the sheet gave away. I slowly pulled the sheet and there, staring at me with dead eyes was a dog. A taxidermied dog. A German Shepherd. The fur of the poor animal was dull, one of his ears had the tip missing. His dead tongue, that dangled from its mouth, looked like it had been painted pink. The cream-coloured teeth posed a threat, ready to strike at prey any time. I was sure that this must have been the dog in the photo. Did it die of natural causes? Or at the hands of someone near, in a fit of rage? Why then, have the dog stuffed? I lowered the sheet, the dog disappeared beneath his decades-old shelter.

I gathered more courage, walked towards the life-sized painting of the dictator and stood in front of it. The aura of a being that had truly lived, made me feel uncomfortable. I stood there and looked at that face, in these eyes, when I heard a noise behind me.

I froze. A chill ran through my body. The room felt ice-cold.

From behind, a streak of light fell on the image of the man in the painting.

His face turned white as that of a corpse.

It was as if time had stopped. It became deathly quiet.

How long I stared at that stone-cold face, I do not know, but somehow I gathered the presence of mind to turn around.

Then I saw the door had swept open. I could see in the forbidden room! Without thinking I walked to the open door, entered the other room and grabbed the doorknob. Within a second I was back in the room with exhibits. A visitor gave me an indifferent glance before giving the artefacts his full attention again.

As I rushed towards the stairs I looked over my shoulder and saw only one door.

The one with the sign ‘Private’.

Outside, as I walked past the castle, I looked up at those windows as I had done so often. As always there was no movement behind the windows.

I reached in the side-pocket of my bag.

The envelope was still there.

~.~

Gemma got to her feet

The girl is right. Statistically speaking a lot more people die on roads than in air crashes. Why has she been so afraid of flying all these years? More than fifty per cent of people divorce each year. Why be in denial about the state of her marriage with Harry? After twenty-five years, it is no surprise that he would want something different. And she isn’t getting any prettier. Prettiness wears off once you’ve passed the age of thirty.

She clutches her boarding card as she lines up behind the other passengers. The young woman who checked her in, comes nearer. No, Harry has always loved her and no one else. He has said so. Well, in his way he had. She glimpses through the window past the security guards. The body of the aircraft looks lugubrious with the dark clouds overhead.

‘Madam?’ the young woman’s voice sounds. She turns to face her. ‘Your boarding pass, please,’ she says in this convincing manner. Gemma looks down at her hands, hands that feel sweaty and are shaking.