Root Of Madness

Synopsis

At the dawn of the 20th century, Mira Devon, a brilliant twenty-three-year-old chemist, carries on the ancestral tradition of crafting natural medicines, salves, and hair treatments based on remedies passed down through generations. Her late mother’s recipe book is her compass—filled with precise formulas and healing guides but also pages of mysterious symbols and undeciphered botanical diagrams no one in her family ever understood. Mira is determined to use her skills to protect her community. Dangerous, caustic hair-straightening solutions are being marketed to Black women as a path to “respectability,” and Mira dedicates herself to creating safer alternatives rooted in ancestral science—her mother’s science. But everything changes when Mira starts hearing a voice beneath her thoughts. The Rootmother has awakened. A being woven from ancestral memory, tangled vines, and centuries of Black women’s whispered knowledge, the Rootmother reaches out to Mira—offering power, guidance, and a chance to unlock the secrets sleeping in her mother’s book. Under the Rootmother’s influence, Mira begins to see plants in ways no human ever has: hearing their pulses, reading chemical bonds like language, and touching the memories of those who used these remedies before her. Just when Mira starts mastering this new connection, she receives an invitation from a mysterious organization known as The Meridian Fellowship—a prestigious scientific institution promising resources, safety, and a chance to elevate her work beyond anything she could achieve alone. Their sprawling research facility is filled with wonders: experimental greenhouses, impossible botanical hybrids, and ancient relics eerily similar to the sketches in her mother’s hidden pages. But Mira quickly realizes: The Fellowship didn’t choose her for her mind—they chose her for her bloodline. The more she uncovers, the clearer it becomes that her family’s legacy is tied to forces far older and more dangerous than she imagined. And the Fellowship wants the Rootmother’s power for themselves. To survive, Mira must decide whether to embrace the Rootmother fully—even if it means letting go of the parts of herself she once held sacred.