Danielle Gasket's search for ancestral secrets is imperiled by warring factions that agree about nothing but that Danielle must die. Danielle's home is a dystopian city beneath the earth's surface. People have lived underground for so long that knowledge of the surface is preserved only in dwindling communities of persecuted heretics. According to the heretics, a prophet called "the philodendrist" led people underground to repent for their violent conquest of the natural world. Following a string of clues while eluding pursuit, Danielle races toward the long-forgotten path of ascension to sunlight, relying upon her wits and valor to make it through. Finally, her mercy toward her fiercest persecutor convinces him to help her ascend to the pure waters of the sunlit world. The Philodendrist Heresy is a call for the preservation and resurrection of the great forests of the earth. "Philodendrist" means "tree lover."