Dawn Meadows - Winter Cabin 06

One gulp turned into another as Dawn tried to balance the scales of social etiquette through politeness.

"You're not drinking yours," Dawn indicated, tipping the top of her glass toward Sinclair's. His sat untouched on the ottoman before him, a crystal prism in the firelight.

"I like to let it breath," he replied, spreading his palms in matter of fact explanation.

"Of course!" said Dawn. The reply came quickly, rushed. It sounded out of tempo, over eager. She helped herself to another gulp of wine. About to speak, she paused, held up a well manicured finger to give herself a moment to swallow. "I did not know you were a wine connoisseur Mr Sinclair," continued Dawn when she could speak, absentmindedly running a hand past her forehead.

"I suspect there are a number of things that you do not know about me Miss Meadows," he returned with a genial chuckle.

"Well, I hope you do not need your wine to breathe for too much longer. I feel funny drinking all by my-- I feel... I feel funny," Dawn's admittance toward the awkward imbalance in the social situation turned into an unexpected revelation. "Is it hot in here?" she laughed, briskly, unguarded, aware in an almost detached way that she must seem like a fool all of a sudden.

"Funny?" Sinclair parroted, arching an eyebrow, regarding the young reporter.

"I...I... you don't feel that?" Dawn tried to work out the explanation. She sort of waived her free hand at the air as though to indicate something all around them. A presence in the cabin? Gerald watched her curiously.

"I'm not sure I follow Miss Meadows," he replied with gentle, condescending patience.

"Something is wrong... I..." Dawn worked very hard to put the thought together, harder still to get the words to form in her mouth and come tumbling out her lips, feeling like a jumbled mess. "Mmmmaybe," she started the painstaking challenge of articulating her next thought, then frustrated by the maddening difficulty, uncrossed her legs. The sound of nylon friction was heightened in her ears.

In one rapid motion she stood up from the couch, "I think perhaps we should-" she began, but the long notched logs of the cabin walls tilted one way while the rug on the floor tipped the other. Dawn's hand moved quickly to her face not even realizing that she had been holding a glass of wine. It tilted over the tips of her clumsy fingers, end over end, landing on the rug at her stocking feet. The contents spilled out, staining a deep red. Dawn looked down, confused as though she could not understand how that just happened, and worse, what had just happened.

One hand pawed at her face trying to wipe away the cotton that was rapidly filling her head, muffling all her senses. The other draped over her tummy, suddenly nauseous with protest and alarm. Her feet performed a graceless dance, as the cabin floor drifted out to sea on stormy waters, up and down, back and forth. Make it stop!

Gerald Sinclair stood up from his chair, stepping toward the teetering reporter. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then paused, reconsidered, and instead dropped his hands to his hips and simply observed.