Blackwood Institute, empty. The tree root in the lobby grows a single, perfect apple. A new couple walks up the driveway, looking at a brochure. The woman says, "I hear this place has a 100% success rate." The man says, "It's so quiet."
The Blackwood Institute, a remote, state-of-the-art fertility clinic and "birthing sanctuary" nestled in the foggy, gothic hills of Western Massachusetts. Built in 1892 as a tuberculosis ward, converted into a eugenics lab in the 1940s, and renovated into a luxury clinic in 2023.
Hale explains: "They don't want to be born. They want to be heard. Your wife is not a mother, Sam. She is a medium."