Chapter 3 shifts to Rose’s point of view for a satisfying training-day chapter that also plants the seed for the book’s title event. A notification about Sadie’s upcoming fourth grade field trip to Annapolis, which she’s specifically asked both Rose and Chip to chaperone, arrives almost as an afterthought before Rose heads off to pick up the kids for their twice-weekly weapons and magic lessons at a rented dojo.

The chapter’s best material is Sadie’s first successful cast of a simple pull cant, a small magical breakthrough that Rose pushes her toward with the same uncompromising discipline she’s used on Chip for years. Watching Sadie go from frustrated failure to gleefully yanking a trash can, and then Rose herself, across the floor is a genuinely satisfying character moment, and it’s a great example of how the series folds real magic-system stakes into otherwise ordinary childhood milestones.

Woven throughout is the low-key tension of Rose’s history with Patty, the mother of Sadie’s best friend Astrid and Rose’s old high school rival, whose presence at pickup is a reminder that even a Fae warrior princess can’t escape small-town social dynamics. It’s a chapter that balances real magical stakes with the mundane texture of carpools and after-school activities, and it sets the Annapolis field trip up as the event this whole book is clearly building toward.

📖 Follow the Guardian family’s latest adventure — get Field Trip Fae on Jamie Davis’s site:

jamiedavisbooks.com/books/field-trip-fae/

 

Field Trip Fae — Chapter 3

The alarm on my phone went off, blaring Van Halen’s *Right Now* from my nightstand. I groaned and rolled over. The night chasing the necromancer and fighting off his little zombie horde had taken more out of me than I liked to admit. I wondered if Chip was feeling the aches as much as I was.

I sat up and tapped the phone to stop the song. It was a great tune, but I’d had enough noise for now. It was early afternoon and I had to get ready to pick up Sadie and Addy at school. I took them to the dojo to train in weapons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’d started with quarterstaff work over the summer, and they had learned that style quickly. On Tuesday, I’d started in with simple bladed weapons. Both kids had been excited to move on to them and I knew they’d be ready for more of the same today.

I made a quick pass with a brush to help pull my hair back into a ponytail which I tied off with a leather thong, the way I’d been taught early in my own weapons training. I don’t know why I’d never progressed to using a simple elastic band like everyone else. I think it was the habit and old-world connection it gave me. Tying my hair with a thong of rawhide was a way of paying homage to my predecessors, the Fae warrior princesses of long ago.

The phone buzzed with a notification, and I picked it up. It reminded me of Sadie’s fourth grade field trip to Annapolis, the state capital of Maryland. She’d specifically asked if both Chip and I would join her on the trip as chaperones. I’d agreed, albeit reluctantly. I didn’t mind Sadie and Addy at all, but their classmates could be a little rambunctious, and Sadie’s best friend, Astrid, was a bit too much like her mother for my tastes.

One swipe took care of the notification. I’d have plenty of time to prepare for that adventure to the capital over the next week. Today, I had kids to train. Chip thought I was too tough on them in the sessions at the rented dojo space. I didn’t see it that way. You trained the way you fought so you were ready for real battles. I did the same thing with Chip in his sparring matches with me. They all had a lot to learn before I exhausted what knowledge and skill I had to impart.

I sent Chip a reminder text message to pick up the kids after their training at the dojo and left to get Sadie and Addy. They loved when I picked them up in my restored candy apple red Firebird. The sports car stood out among the minivans and SUVs in the elementary school pick up line. Sadi especially liked that she got to sit up front with me. Chip made them both sit in the back of the minivan due to the front airbags in the newer car. Neither of them was tall enough to sit up front there yet, but in the Firebird the rules were different. It was made before airbags were a thing.

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the school parking lot and drove over to the pick-up lane to get Sadie and Addy. The teacher’s aide came around with her clipboard to check IDs and check off the kids that were getting picked up that day. My niece and nephew knew not to get on the bus on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the school had their formalities. Schools were so much more locked down these days compared to when I was a kid. I would have been expected to figure it out on my own at this age.

Soon the bell rang, and the kids filed out the side door to their respective rides. Addy ran over first and popped open the passenger door. “Can I sit up front, Aunt Rose?”

“You know the rules kiddo. Get in your booster in the back.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder.

Addy let out a sigh of resignation and flipped the seat forward to climb into the small back seat. He buckled in and waited for Sadie. It didn’t take long. She bounced out with Astrid and a few other friends.

I checked the rear-view mirror. If Astrid was here, Patty probably was back in the line of cars behind me. I didn’t know why my old high school nemesis still got under my skin. She was pleasant enough as an adult. It still bothered me that her daughter and Sadie were best friends. That forced us together from time to time during social events creating an awkwardness I’d rather have avoided. At least she and Chip weren’t currently dating. They were positively disgusting when they were together. I bit back the hint of jealousy at the back of my mind. There was no chance for Chip and me to ever be more than co-parents to these two kids.

Sadie pulled the door open and flopped down in the passenger seat. She set her backpack on the floor between her feet and buckled in before closing the door. Once she was set, I pulled away into the slow-moving line of cars exiting the school lot onto the main road. I wanted to get away before the school buses did. It took forever to get anywhere once you were behind a school bus on its route to unload.

“Who wants to tell me about their day first?” When neither volunteered anything, I prompted them. “Addy, what was the favorite thing you did in school today?”

“Recess.”

It was his usual answer. “What games did you play with your friends?”

He brightened at the thought of his school friends. “We pretended we were knights of the realm defending against a dragon. We pretended Mattie Long was the dragon.”

Alarm bells sounded in my mind. “Addy, was she playing along, or were you playing that game without her permission?” Matilda was the daughter of a local witch coven leader. We didn’t need a problem with her and her fellow witches. It was important for our family to maintain positive relationships with the various leaders in the Unusual community. Sadie might need to rely on them someday.

“It was Mattie’s idea. She’s faster than all of us boys and we couldn’t catch her. It was still fun chasing after her.”

I relaxed a little. Addy wasn’t mean-spirited, but sometimes kids crossed over lines, and it was part of my job to make sure they knew they were to protect others, not victimize them.

“What about you, Sadie?” I asked. “What was your favorite part of the day?”

“In library time, I got to sit with Astrid and talk about the book we’re reading together.”

“Ewwww,” Addy said. “You told me about that book. It has kissy stuff in it.”

I smiled. Fourth grade was a little young for that, but Sadie and Astrid were Fae and they matured a little faster than human kids. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she was interested in having a special friend of some sort soon. I smiled and wondered if Chip knew about this. If he did, he was probably freaking out. That man was definitely going to be the overbearing parent type when it came to Sadie and future relationships. I wasn’t. I was teaching her to defend herself. She wouldn’t get into a situation with a significant other where she couldn’t use her growing martial skills, or her innate magic to get out of.

“Books like that are fun, kiddo. If you have questions in there you don’t want to ask Uncle Chip, you can always come to me. You know that, right? In fact, maybe we need to have another girl-to-girl chat about growing up.”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “Astrid already had the talk with her mom. I heard about it from her. It’s all pretty gross if what she says is true. I’m only reading the book because she suggested it.” Her disgusted expression got me smiling. I knew that would all change soon enough. For now, though, I’d let her be a kid at heart. I wasn’t going to hurry her into young adulthood.

We continued chatting about their school day, now that I’d broken the ice and gotten them talking. Before I knew it, we had pulled into the parking lot at the strip mall with the dojo space I rented. The sensei who owned it cleared his class calendar so I could train the kids alone without prying eyes watching what I taught them. Using their Fae magical talents in tandem with their weapons was something that only came with constant practice. If it was to be practical, it had to become second nature and part of their muscle memory.

Once inside the dojo, the kids set their backpacks against the wall. They each started stretching the way I’d taught them to. Good training habits led to stronger and more rapid growth in the different forms I worked on with them. I stood waiting in the center of the room with their wooden practice blades in one hand and my own in the other.

“Swords again, cool\!” Addy exclaimed. “I got tired of that staff stuff. You can’t stab someone with a quarterstaff or chop off their head.” He slashed at the air with an imaginary sword.

“Don’t denigrate someone with a staff, Addy.” I tucked my wooden blade under my other arm and tapped the side of my head. “The weapon is up here. These are just tools for a job that needs doing. It’s the person that is deadly. Don’t forget that. I once had to kill a vampire and all I had was a number two pencil.”

“Nuh-uh,” Sadie said. “There’s no way, even for you, Aunt Rose.”

I held up my right hand. “I swear to the gods. Let me tell you, I had a heck of a time pushing that thing all the way into his heart.” I didn’t tell them the rogue vamp had already been sorely weakened because I’d flung it out through a window into the afternoon sunlight. But they didn’t need to know all the details of that particular fight. Most of the blood suckers were perfectly decent, even if most are overly proud people.

I handed their practice blades to them and held out my own in front of me in a ready stance. “Let’s go through the forms to practice all the attack positions and the respective defensive shifts from each of them.”

“Can’t we just spar?” Sadie asked. “The forms are boring.”

“You can’t spar if you don’t know the ways you can use the blade. The training forms teach them to you. Now, swords up. Follow along with me.”

We worked on their forms for a good half hour until they each could follow me without mistakes. Then I transitioned to other work. Addy was a little young for the next part, so I gave him my tablet to sit on the side and play a game while I worked with Sadie. She was old enough to start trying simple, very basic spells, called cants. If she mastered them, she could work them into her training katas with her blade.

The first I wanted to teach her was a simple pull. It was often used to summon small objects to a spell caster’s hand. In combat, though, I’d found it was sometimes just enough to tip a person off-balance when they lunged or extended themselves in some other way.

“Sadie, hold out your hand, palm up, towards the metal trash can over there. Now focus your attention on it and curl pointer and middle fingers back toward you in a quick gesture of summoning.”

“Aunt Rose, I can’t just summon a trash can to come here.”

I put my hands on my hips. “How do you know? Have you already tried this?”

“No, but I don’t have that kind of power.”

“You’re only right if you don’t try. Now hand up and focus. Think about the trash can coming toward you.”

She frowned and faced the trashcan with her hand reaching out in its direction. She curled her fingers back slowly.

“Move your fingers faster. You’re calling it to come to you. Use your fingers to tell it what to do.”

She repeated the move faster a few times and then lowered her arm. “See, I told you. It won’t work. I don’t have that kind of magic. The only thing I can do is see who people are inside.”

“That’s a different part of your inner self. This is Fae magic that everyone in our family has. Now hand up. Try again. We’re going to keep at this until you get it to move.”

She tried again and again, getting more and more frustrated.

I forced her to keep going. This was going to take some sort of breakthrough and it wouldn’t come easily.

Finally, she stomped her foot when I repeated the word, “Again.”

Sadie whirled around to face me, her eyes cold and hard with anger.

I didn’t flinch. I nodded at the trash can and said, “Again.”

She huffed and spun around as she lifted her hand in a quick flowing motion. The two fingers beckoned to the can. To her surprise, it slid a few feet across the wooden floor in her direction.

Sadie’s eyes lit up with delight. “I did it. I did it. Aunt Rose did you see that?”

“I did. Now do it again. Once you can do it every time, I’ll show you how it works in a fight.”

That prospect excited her and she worked hard for the next half hour until she could do it every time. The small waste bucket didn’t weigh much, so it didn’t take too much mana to make the spell work. It would take a lot more to move a person.

“Okay, now come over here and stand across from me. I’m going to lunge at you with my blade. You already know the counter to that. Parry my blade and while you do, extend the other arm and use the pull cant on me.”

“But you’re too big, Aunt Rose.”

“I am, but it’s about leverage. When someone is tipped forward in a lunge or other extension attack, it doesn’t take much to pull them off-balance. Now, sword up.”

I squared off opposite my niece and waited until her sword came up. Then I lunged in, trying to slip past her guard. I didn’t want to injure her, just get close enough to prove my point.

On the first attempt her timing was off, and she missed with both the parry and the spell. I gave her a painful tap on her knee with the flat of my practice sword.

“Ow. What was that for?”

“To teach you to keep your guard up. I made that lunge easy to block and you still missed. Try again.”

Sadie raised her blade to the ready position. I turned in place and lunged in at her as I came around.

This time, her sword came around and clacked against mine to knock it aside so it passed beside her waist. At the same moment, her left hand swept up and two fingers gestured at me.

It was my turn to be surprised. I’d expected a small tug and was ready to resist it. It was more a forceful yank against my chest, and I stumbled forward a few steps until I caught my balance.

Sadie laughed and jumped up and down. “Aunt Rose, I did it. You really almost fell.”

“Yes, I did. You are more powerful than you think, Sadie. Don’t ever forget that. You have magic in your blood. It’s coursing through you all the time. When you need it, it’s there for you to call upon.”

She smiled and whirled in place until she suddenly stopped, facing the trash can. This time, when she beckoned, it slid all the way across the floor to stop at her feet.

I didn’t expect her to progress this quickly with this particular skill, but I was happy to see it. It meant I could start advancing her to other attack and spell combinations.

Through the window in the dojo’s front door, I spotted Chip pull up in the minivan. “Okay, that’s enough for today. You still have to go home and do your homework. Your uncle’s here. Let’s pack up and do our final stretches. That means you, too, Addy. Put the tablet away in my purse and come over to finish with Sadie and me.”

This had been one of our more productive sessions and I was excited about what it meant for Sadie’s continued training. As she grew older, she’d be in situations where she’d be on her own more and more often. I wanted her to have all the skills to protect herself I could impart. I would make sure this particular Fae Queen ascended her throne.

📖 Loved Chapter 3? Keep going — get Field Trip Fae on Jamie Davis’s site:

jamiedavisbooks.com/books/field-trip-fae/