Mitchell and Peter sailed through the Pearl Channel aboard Surly Mermaid. The sloop moved easily in the afternoon breeze while Moreton Island softened the eastern horizon.
It was Mitchell’s world now—confident, calm and in control.
He hadn’t always been a sailor. Fear taught him quickly. The sea punished hesitation through a flogging sail, a wandering bow or water passing somewhere it shouldn’t. He learned to read the wind and anticipate the boat before conditions turned against him.
People were not so different.
Both announced trouble before it arrived, but only to someone paying attention. Mitchell had become skilled at noticing the early signs and better still at hiding his own. That gave him an advantage.
Now he navigated the subtle shifts in people with practised ease. A glance held too long. A nervous laugh. A question disguised as a joke. Each revealed a change in pressure.
Peter sat opposite him with a drink balanced against his thigh. The mainland had become a thin line behind them. Ahead, channel markers stood apart in water that otherwise appeared without rules.
That was what Mitchell liked about sailing. On land, power was divided among spouses, employers, police, neighbours and strangers. At sea, one person made the decisions.
The skipper.
Over drinks, Mitchell explained how solitude on the water changed people. Once the shore disappeared, the boundaries that supported confidence did too. Mobile reception weakened. Landmarks faded. Passengers stopped knowing where they were.
That absence of boundaries made them vulnerable.
Women changed especially, he said. They smiled more. Listened better. Asked permission before moving forward, as though the deck belonged to the man at the helm.
The skipper chose the course, anchorage and time of return. Even a confident passenger eventually looked towards him for reassurance.
Out there, he was God.
Peter laughed, treating it as bravado. The afternoon was too bright for menace. Sunlight flashed across the water, and Mitchell’s voice remained conversational.
Then the stories grew darker.
He told Peter about a weekend sail with a sun-worshipping woman. At first, it was lighthearted—nudity, wine and shared glances. She stretched across the foredeck, apparently pleased with the attention she attracted.
Mitchell watched from the cockpit.
He enjoyed watching people who believed they controlled the impression they created.
The woman misunderstood the trip’s duration. She thought they were spending an afternoon on the water. Mitchell knew they would not return until the following day.
He did not correct her.
By late afternoon, the mainland had disappeared into haze and shadows lengthened across the remote beach. The woman finally asked what time they were heading home.
Mitchell studied the anchorage before answering.
Not tonight.
Her smile faltered.
She checked her phone and lifted it towards the sky. No reception. No messages going out. No explanation reaching anyone waiting for her.
There were no other boats. The island’s bush pressed close behind the beach while Surly Mermaid held the only cabin, radio and means of returning home.
Her options vanished one by one.
Mitchell watched her wrestle with the situation. Anger appeared first, then caution. The person she needed to challenge was also the person she depended upon.
It was a test.
Not of seduction, but of power.
Peter stopped laughing.
There had been no violence. Mitchell needed no threats or force. Distance, darkness and dependence had quietly reversed their roles.
That was how power worked best when it looked ordinary.
Back aboard, the woman expected intimacy. Perhaps yielding seemed safer than sleeping near a man whose intentions she no longer understood.
Instead, Mitchell gave her nothing but a cold saloon bed and a shut cabin door.
And she was disappointed.
That was the part Peter struggled to understand.
Mitchell smiled, not from kindness but from control. Seduction would have allowed the woman to believe the evening belonged to them both. Refusing her preserved the truth: nothing happened unless he chose it.
The next morning, he raised the anchor when he was ready. She sat silently while the island receded.
By the time the mainland returned, she behaved as though the night had been her decision too.
Mitchell understood. People preferred a flattering lie to an admission of helplessness.
Surly Mermaid passed the next channel marker. Peter looked towards the shrinking island, his drink untouched.
Their conversation would continue as they sailed into Deception Bay, but Mitchell had already made his point.
Out here, he decided everything.
Excerpt from the SEETHINGS trilogy: SEETHINGS 2—available for download now.
Chapter 3
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SEETHINGS II follows the return of the Storm Killer as a body on a secluded beach in Moreton Bay, igniting fear and denial. While police dismiss the link, the media doesn’t. Mitchell Felding forms a dangerous bond with a man who understands his darkest impulses. When Natasha enters his life, carrying love letters from her murdered mother, intimacy deepens, and truth closes in. Some futures are inherited. Some have escaped.
SEETHINGS (first in the series) is downloadable and free for a limited time here.
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