One day, Emily Scroggins is living a privileged life on her family's horse farm in Charleston, South Carolina. Twenty-four hours later, she is a stowaway on a merchant ship bound for Mexico. Emily and her father, a prominent physician, are swept away to the jungles of the Yucatan where his medical expertise is needed to thwart an epidemic that is plaguing the natives. A young girl in a distant country, Emily adapts to the foreign land's mystical culture and skirts its exotic dangers. Helping her is an adventurous boy named Pedro, who has found a prehistoric secret deep in the jungle. Emily vows to protect the secret, but what will they do when exposing it may be the village's only salvation in the wake of a natural disaster? From perils on the high seas to epic crises on land, Emily rises to the challenge and proves how humble and resourceful she can be.