Caroleen’s heart felt as if it would break at Ivan’s outburst. She had done nothing to elicit that kind of harshness from him and Teresa was angry beyond words. Caroleen heard the voice in her head sputter a few times and utter curses that caused her face to turn bright red.<br/><br/>The voice sneered,<br/>“As if I would let that old lecher touch me after an outburst like that!. I would as soon stomp on his foot as let him dance with me in the moonlight. I am here, after a fashion and I was trying to reach out to him. You are merely an inconvenient bridge for reaching him and I thought, that Ivan of all people would recognize that. You told him that I present. How else is he to hear my words if your voice doesn’t utter them? Move away from him.”<br/><br/>Caroleen just shook her head and examined her fingernails as the wagon rattled on through the twilight. She did not move away from him in the angry silence that Teresa demanded of her, but her heart ached at the man’s sorrow.<br/><br/>The wagon jolted in every pot hole along the path and she thouo gh from Ivan’s curses that this stretch of road might be the worst yet.<br/>Caroleen’s back and arms ached from bracing herself in the springless buckboard but still Ivan drove the horses relentlessly. She managed to wrap herself in a cloak and wedged herself close to Ivan for support as well as warmth. In places, the clouds covered the moon and the road was nearly impossible to see. When they rode through forests, the trees were so densely packed that following the road was not too difficult as there was no place to go.<br/><br/>Toward dawn, Caroleen thought she could smell the sea but was so cold and stiff that she didn’t bother to look around. Not another word had passed between her and Ivan. Thankfully Teresa was still too angry to devil her more. Caroleen just felt sad, down to her bones, sad and tears burned at the back of her eyes. She was learning the difference between herself and Teresa but she knew one thing, that Ivan had hurt them both deeply.