A Raggant in Aerwiar

Two years ago today, I arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina—my official move from northern climes to the south. The move was a bit haphazard in that I had come down for working visit a few weeks earlier and didn’t move my belongings down until a few months later, but March 31 was my official arrival. During my transition time after arrival I stayed with friends so I didn’t have my own address. I therefore used my work address for all necessary mail.

One of these necessary mail items about a months after I arrived was the reward from Andrew Peterson’s The Warden in the Wolf King Kickstarter project. I’d had the privilege of proofreading the book so it wasn’t so much that I needed to get it in order to read it as I needed to get it in order to find out if the right number of dragons had fought and died and lived in the final battle. That said, my excitement was not diminished for already knowing how the story ended.

In the day or so before the package arrived I took to haunting the mailboxes at my workplace, waiting to see if my books had arrived. There, the morning before my package arrived, I got into a conversation with two of my coworkers about what I was waiting for. I told them about the Wingfeather Saga and the Kickstarter.

My coworker Lynn said, “I know those books! My son loves them!” She said they hadn’t gotten in on the Kickstarter, but that her son Roch was eagerly awaiting the formal release of the final book in the series.

“He could borrow mine,” I said.
Lynn looked at me a little confused. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I just read it a few months ago when I proofed it. I just want to count the dragons and then Roch could borrow it.”

So when my package arrived I took it home for a night counted the dragons (the right number lived and died this time) and then took it back to work the next day for Lynn to take to her son.

Roch devoured the book, and when Lynn returned it to me with profuse thanks, she said, “Okay, so can you help me know when the book actually comes out—there’s one more thing that Roch wants—it’s a little book that goes with it, some kind of encyclopedia?”

“Ah,” I said, “Pembrick’s Creaturepedia. Yes, I think they only made a limited edition of that, so there won’t be many available. I’ll keep my eyes out.” I hadn’t yet had the chance to meet Roch, but I could tell this 11-year-old boy was my kind of kid.

Some weeks later, still a month or so before the book’s official release, I was out in Nashville visiting the Rabbit Room. I had a brainstorm while I was there and realized I could pick up a copy of Pembrick’s Creaturepedia for Roch. I got the copy and took it back to Charlotte where Lynn realized the timing was perfect. Roch was performing in the skits for our church’s VBS that week and the book would be a gift to him for all his hard work.

At the end of the week, I was sitting at lunch in the kitchen at work and Lynn and Roch entered.

“This is Miss Givens,” said Lynn to a bathrobed Roch—I presume his costume for the VBS skit. “She’s the one who brought you the book.”

Roch made his way across the room and pulled his already slightly battered Pembrick’s Creaturepedia out of his bathrobe pocket and dove right in. “Have you seen this one? And this one? And here at the end how you can draw your own creatures? I drew this one and I’m thinking about another.” He paged through the text and showed me some of his favorite creatures. “And this one this one is the best!” he said. “I just think this is so cool—” He flipped to a page with the picture of a small, multi-eyed beast that looked a bit like a winged rhinoceros and began reading the description, “Something is surely amiss. Of all the odd creatures I have discovered, some rumor existed of each. But this raggant (a name which came to me the moment I set my eyes upon it) has no precedent, no mention in the volumes of Aerwiar’s history…”

As he read, I looked at the picture and thought to myself, Wait I know that creature… I had not flipped through my own Creaturepedia yet. Roch was giving me my first introduction.

“Roch,” I asked, “have you read the 100 Cupboards books by N.D. Wilson?”
“I read the first one,” Roch answered.
I pointed to the page. “Isn’t this the creature from those books?”
“I think you’re right!” said Roch.

It was one of those delightful little discoveries—those ones that make you love an artist even more because he made a nod to a thing you love. Ever since that day, I’ve wanted to know how a raggant came to be found in Aerwiar—and which cupboard door Henry might have opened for an entirely different adventure.

My great wish may never be fulfilled, but I haven’t stopped hoping for it. You see, there’s another Kickstarter going on right now (it finishes on April 4; you’ve still got time to support it!). They’re aiming to turn the Wingfeather Saga into an animated series. Yesterday they hit one of their stretch goals—$175,000. In addition to being able to animate Peet the Sockman, one of my favorite characters in the series, this stretch goal includes the reward of a story in the world of Aerwiar written by N.D. Wilson and illustrated by Joe Sutphin.

I can’t say I’m not dreaming of seeing a raggant in Aerwiar yet.