Softly She Waits for Winter: Jakub Riser, #2

By Sion Jones

For Jakub Riser, it just seemed like a love life gone horribly wrong.

Then he discovered he could see dead people. And from that single gift, others emerged, showing him a brand new world he had never known existed.

In a search for understanding and a desire to learn the meaning of these new abilities, he found that most people are not how they seem. But another sees him for who he is.

Jakub's gifts, and the talents of those he holds dear have begun to emerge, which has brought new meaning to a saying she had always heard but never understood.

In winter, everything sleeps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aethem Press
• Release date: Nov 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781956558166

Sion Jones

Sion Jones is a Welsh American ontologist and writer of magical realism. His first published works were of poetry in 1992, and over the next decade, extended to three full-length poetry books and a novella. He began the Jakub Riser series in 2018, and is also the author of the Veil series. Sion is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and studied Journalism at Michigan State University. He is currently published by Aethem Press in Austin, Texas.

Book preview

a little harder

Bars never seem to attract normal people.

Like that guy with the black messenger bag. He was a bit odd. Never a beer, never a shot, and for some reason he couldn’t order a normal drink to save his life. Always some cocktail knockoff, usually a Mojito of some sort, always virgin. Apparently like his dating life, because the kid never showed up with a woman and rarely talked to the ones that were there. Bad business for liquor sales, good for refreshing his bartending skills.

At least it would end up making him more valuable in the bartending market until he could find something better to do.

He’d taken the job at the Tinder Statesman because he was tired of trying his hand at physical jobs and just wanted a change of scenery to pay the bills and not make him want to soak in a tub of liniment every night after work. This did both, and for the most part, he was happy.

Today was slower than usual, but it was 4:30 on a Tuesday, so you only really got the regulars in the door, and this guy was usually the first in, and he was out by dinner time. Happy Hour seemed to chase him out the door every day. Yet another reason why he was so odd.

Excuse me, Mitchell? Could I have another one of these please? The guy asked, lightly tapping the rim of his glass. It was absolutely irritating.

"I’m not Mitchell, I’m Stefan, he huffed, feeling the anger rise. Then he remembered that his name tag actually did have his first name on it. He looked down, glanced at the brass shine, and softened. Fat Man in the back, he started. Sorry. I go by Stefan, but the boss man refuses to put anything but my legal first name on the tag, so we have this crap."

Well, Stefan, some bosses just suck. I apologize for the mistake.

Maybe this guy wasn’t that bad.

No harm done, I guess.

So how did that whole thing come about, if you don’t mind me asking?

What thing?

With the name. The difference.

Welp, my biological father named me Mitchell, and Momma wanted to name me Stefan. I was supposed to be Stefan Mitchell, but my father had all the access to the people doing the paperwork cuz momma was in the back getting stitched up or whatever and he thought her idea of a name would turn me into a gay hairdresser so I ended up Mitchell Stefan. Momma always called me Stefan. She didn’t give a shit, and I don’t think she ever forgave ‘im for it. Nobody uses Mitchell.

What does your daddy call you? The kid asked.

He doesn’t. He ran off with some waitress and moved west, from what I understand. Never saw him again. Honestly, I don’t remember what he looked like. Couldn’t pick ‘im out of a lineup to save my life.

I had the opposite problem.

Oh yeah?, Stefan asked, intrigued.

Yeah, my mom ran off with her nurse, so my dad blew his brains out.

Wow.

You said your mom ran off with her nurse?

Yeah, she’s a lesbian now. She’s also very highly outclassed by her partner.

I thought I had a messed up story, that’s so screwed up it makes mine look normal! What’s your name, anyway? You’ve never said.

Jakub. With a ‘u’. I come from the eastern Hill country, so we spell things weird sometimes. La Grange, actually. Jakub Riser.

Stefan took a moment to examine the sandy-haired man again. He looked on closer inspection to roughly be the same age, so he wasn’t really a kid, but that didn’t explain the stuffed black rabbit he carried around with him in a sling bag. At the present moment, it was perched, facing Jakub as if it were a real thing.

I’m sure you get this a lot, but the curiosity is killin’ me. What’s with the rabbit?

Jakub slightly smiled and answered, Oh, Luna? She’s a gift from one of my better loves. My last, actually.

Hard breakup? Women can do that to ya.

Now that you mention it, it was a hard break. She’s dead.

Not the answer I was looking for.

I’m sorry. Maybe sometimes I should just keep my damned mouth shut.

Nah, Jakub answered with nothing but kindness on his face, You’re good. People do ask a lot. It’s an odd thing, I’ll admit.

Anyway, I know where La Grange is. That ain’t too far away. So, Jakub with a ‘u’, What’s the story with you coming into a bar and never orderin’ alcohol? Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

Not really, Jakub answered, I figure it this way. I have the drinks that I like, and you know ya can’t get a virgin mojito or many of the other drinks that I drink at the grocery store, so I think it’s easier to just come here and have them naturally made by the professionals.

You know you could just make ‘em at home. It’s not that hard and probably costs a lot less. Not that I don’t appreciate the business.

I like the social interaction. All I have is a fish at home, and she sucks at tending bar. Gets me out of the house and out into the real world, at least for a little bit. Used to just drink straight bourbon at home, then that wasn’t working out so well for me. Better to not do it at all where I’m concerned.

Okay. I just thought I’d run that by ya. Lemme know if there’s anything else I can get ya.

He had gone back to cleaning up bar, making sure ice was in, and doing some light cleaning when he noticed something odd was happening.

The guy, Jakub, with a u, began talking to the chair next to him.

It was empty.

They appeared to be having a lively conversation when Jakub had waved to him and asked for a gin and ginger tonic for the imaginary friend next to him. Called him Garry. It was definitely a new one.

Garry here wants a gin and ginger. Says he keeps asking for one. Guess you just didn’t hear him.

I didn’t. Might be a reason for that.

Like the fact that he’s an invisible, imaginary friend of yours that has no voice?

Okay, the kid seemed confused, almost offended.

You’re wanting a gin and ginger tonic, you said?

Yeah, I’ll go ahead and pay for his drink, and get another of my usual. The rest is yours. The kid placed a twenty-dollar-bill on the counter.

Can’t argue with that.

After all, the guy had paid for it, and why turn down the tip? If he decided someone was actually there, then might as well play along. This Jake guy might be falling off the wagon, who could tell?

He brought the drinks, placed one in front of the empty seat. As Stefan went back to clear some more glasses, he wondered. He’d heard of veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and buying drinks to sit in memory of their deceased war buddies that had been lost in combat. But this didn’t seem to be that. After all, he was talking to someone as if they were there.

The good news was that no one else seemed to notice, and he was a fully paying customer. Nothing got lost on it. Except for the drink he’d bought. If it had been something normal, Stefan might have sneaked it off himself. It ended up just going down the drain, especially after the ice melted.

Stefan didn’t know quite why it stuck in his craw. But it was something he’d need to talk to Fat Man about, especially if the kid made it a habit. There are several things a good bartender has to look for, from the state of drunkenness of the patrons, to making sure they paid the tab right, and in a few cases like this one, actually keep them from mindlessly blowing money, even if the income was good for the business.

This just seemed mindless.

a fine act of repeat

There are many strange places a person can be in. Many of the solutions given for them are usually just as strange. Ever since that first trip to San Antonio, there on the Riverwalk, Jakub had become partial to the taste of the virgin Mojito. Maybe it was the lime.

Perhaps it was the mint and basil mixture. It didn’t really matter. Something about it just screams out to you, and he couldn’t decide what exactly it was screaming.

Everybody seemed to notice Luna. He was well aware that a grown-ass man with a stuffed toy rabbit and no kids made absolutely zero sense to anyone, but he wasn’t going to let go of it. After all, it’s not every day that the dead send you Priority Mail.

Has to be worth something.

He was thinking about Garry, the guy he’d met at the Statesman. Looked really rough. He appeared as if he’d needed to go to an emergency room rather than a bar, but who can know what’s running through the mind of a man. Said he didn’t hurt, but you’d think that he could have at least cleaned up a bit before going out in public.

Guy looked like he’d went boxing twelve rounds with a bulldozer and barely escaped with his life.

Garry hadn’t had much to say to Stefan, who was tending bar. Either that or Stefan knew who he was and simply chose to ignore him. Either way, he’d asked for a gin and ginger, so Jakub had covered it. Stefan acted like he wasn’t even there, and since he’d just walked in, Jakub was pretty sure he hadn’t had a chance to be so drunk he got cut off. Must be some kind of bad blood between them. It happens sometimes.

He didn’t have any money, or at least that was what he had said, and the way he felt, in addition to the appearance he seemed to be in… why wouldn’t you at least buy the guy a drink, especially if he wasn’t in the whole recovery racket that Jakub was, no matter if it was an entirely self-imposed thing. After all, Jakub wasn’t the savior of the world, just himself at this moment. He knew how it was.

You don’t see the things that are eating away at your skin, until they have a mouthful and you feel the pain from it. The world could be really ugly, and many times there weren’t many directions to go in that would do anything useful. Jakub had been there and knew exactly what Garry was feeling.

The pain of living. It could be a dull, almost boring monotony of time all smashed together in a poultice that just wouldn’t heal a damned thing. Witch doctor medicine that simply didn’t have the same effect that a good shot of juice would.

Jakub found something different, something more, and that was the thing propelling him now. Like a new driver had gotten into the racer and had the wheel. It was the only way to explain how he was able to go into a bar as an alcoholic, order virgin drinks, and still be completely cool with it and not slip.

It wasn’t Jakub had much faith in the process, but rather he knew he wasn’t really the one driving anymore. Everything was about a woman, as it usually is, and it didn’t matter that she was physically dead. She was still out there somewhere in a form that he seemed to be able to understand and comprehend better now and it killed the drive to get drunk.

He wasn’t having to deal with someone else’s bullshit.

Except for Angelica, who was flittering her single fin and having a go inside the aquarium at the moment. As he watched her swim around excitedly, he sat back with his prized crystal whiskey tumbler of Diet Dr Pepper and thought about this new guy he’d met earlier.

Garry appeared to be in his 40s, maybe 50s, if you were stretching it a bit. One of the first things you noticed about him was the full brown goatee. He looked almost like the kind of guy you could see as a handyman or laborer. He really didn’t have anything about him that screamed executive or any kind of high roller. The hair was a little wild even though it was short, and he had eyes that seemed slightly larger than they needed to be. Garry wasn’t quite bug-eyed, but something about his looks was just a little off. Other than that, he was just a normal everyday guy that seemed to work a full day, go to the bar, then just go home to watch a game show and eat a TV dinner.

He looked like the guy that was itching with everything he was worth for a conversation, but simply didn’t know how to get it started. Shyness is a bitch. Jakub knew that one very well. It had cost him a girl he really wanted once, and he hadn’t forgotten it. Then again, he was on the fence with that assessment, because she hadn’t liked him anyway. He didn’t know she liked girls at the time.

That was a situation that went horribly wrong, and it had really hurt. What hurt even worse was the fact that he then had to see her off and on for the next three years, and when it came down to brass tacks with Veronica, she was the one he’d had to finally talk to.

Who knew she’d been Veronica’s roommate? Then again, at the time he hadn’t known who Veronica was for it to even matter.

Sometimes, if you keep losing big it might be time to stop playing at all.

His buddy seemed to be having issues like that as well. Things had gotten closer with Aiden since Jakub had moved to Austin, and it seemed that Jarrells spent more time floating through Austin now and that made things more fun. He always had stories with photographic evidence and was a friendly face to see in the middle of what became more of a routine to Jakub.

One of the ideas Aiden had dreamed up was some wacky adventure of buying a van, building it into some sort of a mobile man cave and traveling the country. That did seem to fit him, though. He was the kind of guy that would be painted as a surfer anywhere he went, even if it was mostly couches.

Why doncha come with me? He’d asked one afternoon as they were sipping an afternoon coffee on the tiny back porch.

I got all of this crap goin’ on, Jakub had answered.

Sometimes it all needs to just take a break, and you do too.

I ain’t sayin’ I won’t think about it, I just can’t do it tomorrow, he had said. But the seed was there, and he’d been thinking about the idea regularly now.

You can’t really do these things ‘like tomorrow’, Aiden had replied, They do take a little time to put together. I mean, I know people that have picked up and then never went back home, but that’s the exception, not the norm. So here’s the question. If you had the opportunity, and decided you might want to try it, would you?

He hadn’t even put a lot of thought into what Aiden was suggesting or what it might mean. The feelings of adventure were becoming too much to bear, like a tugging on him as if you were putting a tiny paper sailboat into a stream, so he gave the answer that went with it.

Yeah, I totally think I could do that.

Cool. Then I’ll start saving with that in mind, and well see where we get.

I can get on board with that. What kind of money are we talking?

Well, Aiden had said, leaning back in his chair, "I know that a lot of folks doing this and RVs and things like that have a steady trickle income coming in, like Social Security, or pensions, disability, things like that. But you don’t have to, of course. I know that the base you’d need is about $600 a month. With two people, that gets a little more ambiguous. But let’s say that it was about two grand between two people. If you bought the van outright, you don’t have that bill. Then you got insurance, fuel, any travel memberships, which I highly suggest, and then food. Everything else is what you use to sweeten the pot. Wanna guitar? You can buy it. Wanna gadget? Pick it up."

What happens when you get too much crap?

That’s the beauty of it. There’s a working philosophy involved. Called minimalism. So what that is basically, you find your balance of things you own. Keep ‘em down to about 75% core necessity to 25% luxury. Move more things digital. All my books and photos and such are on my tablet. I store the things I like the most on the tablet, all of it’s copied to the cloud. I can never really lose any of it. Just get a new device and download. Have you ever noticed that I own 2 t-shirts, and then I have this, he tugged on his pant leg, it unzips. I don’t hafta buy shorts. I just zip the legs off. I have a pair of sandals, a pair of boots. A couple hats, a light material outfit. I mean, this is my wardrobe in its entirety. I don’t own anything else. If I get bored, I buy a new color of it and donate the old one to someone that can use it. Basic rule is once you hit that equilibrium, you get, you give. Everyone’s happy. Zero impact.

I’ll hafta look more into that. I’m interested, just kinda ignorant on it all.

No problem. I have a bunch of links and videos I can email ya. You might get hooked early, just sayin’. The minimalism you can start practicing now.

And then Aiden had taken off again to a new area for a week or so. That was the way he lived, almost like an alley cat, but every time he came into town, he seemed to be better educated, happier, and was always relaxed. Always had plenty of pictures to show off. Very little seemed to ever get under his skin. One of the things that Jakub liked but was also secretly jealous of, was that Aiden never seemed to get bored. He rarely had a place where he had nothing to do, and had no way to occupy his time. Even when he was doing absolutely nothing, he would be completely fulfilled.

It was maddening to watch.

He also seemed to never meet a person he didn’t like. It had formed a personality in him that was plainly magnetic. People gravitated to him like a pop star. Aiden gave off a calmness and happiness that attracted the most random segment of people.

Jakub wanted to be that guy. If for no other reason than a sense of purpose.

Maybe purpose had been the thing that held him at bay. He’d been muddling along until he met Veronica. Really met her. He’d seen her before that, but the real interactions