They say that children see things, things that grown-ups knew once but forgot to look for.

Riley saw the way his sister watched the world – wide-eyed, trepid, skittish – and he knew.

He watched her. Watched, and noted when her gaze went distant, when she caught her breath, flinched away from nothing as though struck.

He watched her and he waited for the signs. And saw them, and knew. Something bad was coming.

It didn’t always happen that way, of course. As a barometer for the future, she was inconstant at best. Sometimes she flinched, and he walked on eggshells for days, only to hear her laugh with her friends and realize that, whatever she had seen, it hadn’t come to pass.

But it happened often enough that Riley hated to look away from her. All he could do was watch, and wait. She wouldn’t talk about it.

Sometimes he pitied her, when her face went pale and her skin clammy. Sometimes he thought he had it better than she.

And sometimes he envied her. At least she knew what was coming.