WOLF’S HEAD: This was taken from a painting I did a long time ago: copyright 1997. That acrylic painting is 2 x 3 feet and full of intricate Celtic designs. It took me 7 years to finish it. The wolf’s head was painted with a tiny brush to paint each hair. The grey wolf is my totem, my spiritual animal. In the story, the lost boy runs with the wolves in the forest. In later books, it is mentioned that Erren Archer’s totem is the black wolf, because his hair is black and his Space Force uniform is black, whereas my personal totem is just grey.

TREE ROOTS: I felt that tree roots would be a good symbol for “Beneath the Surface,” since the lost boy was stolen away by the Queen of the Forest into her etheric palace in the Otherwold beneath the surface of the Mississauga Forest. The whole theme of “Beneath the Surface” is about hidden things. Roots are hidden beneath the surface of the ground and so that became the overall symbol for the saga. That is why I included roots in the main title.

CREDITS: The tree roots photo is called “roots-of-big-old-tree_w725_h544″ and is a public domain image courtesy of: http://www.public-domain-image.com/.

COLOURS: I described people’s auras in the books. There are usually many bands of colour in a person’s aura, but I simplified this down to two bands for the story. Erren Archer’s aura is golden orange surrounded by violet, so I made the book cover the same colours.