The earth is thirsty again.

I've felt it. I've heard its cry, coming from under the damp leaves and knotted roots. It whispers in the deep, rumbling voice of something primeval. The villagers hear it as well—they just call it responsibility, custom, affection.

The true genius of "Five Turns of the Wheel" lies in its paradoxical nature – it draws you in even as it pushes you away. The writing is exquisitely sharp, each word cutting straight to your core. The air is heavy, laden with the decay of both matter and optimism. As for the rituals, they're depicted with such a haunting grace, such an unsettling allure, that you find yourself captivated, unable to look away even when you know you should.

The wheel revolves. Five spokes to signify the cost. Sons and daughters are pressed into the ground, their flesh for the soil, their blood for the harvest. Mothers present their sons with steady hands. Fathers weep with pride, not sorrow, as the earth engulfs their children. It is an honor, they say. A sacrifice to ensure verdant fields, plump apples, and golden wheat.

I stood on the edge of it, a coward with dirt on my boots, watching as the horned men came. Their faces were masks of bark and bone, but their eyes were bright with joy. They led the chosen ones with tender hands—so gentle, so kind. I could not look away. When the first throat opened, I expected screaming. Instead, there was only the whisper of the wind through the grass, as though the earth itself hushed the sound.

And in that silence, I saw her—the girl, claimed by blood, giving up both mother and father, even the child in her womb. The girl with rage in her throat and rebellion in her fists. She moved through the madness like a specter, her voice a blade against the spell that bound the village. She screamed for the dead. She clawed at the roots of a tradition that strangled the living.

And now, though I close the book, I still hear the wheel creaking forward. I still smell the iron-rich earth. I still see the girl’s bloodied hands, reaching for me from the dark, begging me to help. But I am only a reader. I can only watch as the wheel turns once more