Friday, December 21, 2018. Today is the Winter Solstice–the shortest day of the year–Mid-Winter. Continuing the series of Seasonal Sacrifices about the town that sacrifices on the cross a pair of village women on each of the solstices and each of the equinoxes. We’ve already seen the spring, summer and autumn sacrifices. Now it is time for the final sacrifice of the year. These two women will die naked and nailed to a wooden cross. The cold wind will whip around their exposed flesh and a freezing, biting snow will chill their bodies. Shivering, teeth chattering, skin turning blue from the cold, their lives will ebb away. In a way they are the luckiest of the eight women who will die in this ritual. The cold will take them quickly–an icy rime covering their lifeless bodies. It will be particularly difficult to pry their frozen bodies off of the crosses but in just about 90 days, the wooden crosses will be ready for the next seasonal sacrifice. Spring will come. The sacrifices will continue...