"I have a cottage along the coast just about a mile from here. Come to get away from it all."
"What do you do for a living, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Private consulting, research, investigations."
"Sounds cryptic."
He laughs.
"Yes, very. Pointedly so."
"All right," I say, smiling. "I won't ask."
We round the point and I find an injured Gannet, its feathers still dark, a late season fledgling probably flown from the nesting colony in the cliffs in the distance. We kneel in the sand and I pick it up, concern for the young bird flooding through me, making my throat close. Still alive but clearly in pain, its wing hangs at an odd angle. It flops around, breathing heavily, gasping for breath. I hold it in my hands, but it falls limp and still. I can feel the moment it dies and blink away the tears that fill my vision, embarrassed to show emotion in front of a complete stranger.
He tilts my chin up and examines my face. "Not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it."
I frown for I recognize the biblical reference. He lays his hand on my neck, his skin still cool and wrinkled from swimming, and I feel as if he's inside my mind probing my thoughts, the sensation so clear it feels like a violation. I pull away and avert my eyes for he shouldn't be touching me.
"Here," he says and takes the dead bird from me. "Let me."
He holds the small body in his hands, peers at it closely, then strokes its chest. Before my eyes, it moves and then starts to breathe once more. He rights it and pulls out its wing, straightening it with his hand. The wing folds up into perfect alignment. Then, he throws the young fledgling up into the air and off it flies.
I watch, my mouth gaping open. I turn to him.
"How did you do that?" I whisper, my voice barely registering.
"How do you think I did it?" he says, watching the bird fly off.
"Well, you're either magic or an angel," I say, "and since I don't believe in either, I must have been mistaken about it being dead."
He frowns. "Sad to be so cynical for one so young."
"I don't want to be cynical, but I have my reasons."
He stands and walks along the shore once again, picking up shells, holding them up, turning them over so that they glitter and gleam in the last rays of sunshine.
He holds a shell out. It's a dog whelk.
"Nucella lapillus." He turns it over in his hand. "Look at the shape. Interesting isn't it? It's what's called a Logarithmic Spiral. Mathematics is coded in nature. Like a message to us."
"I don't believe in messages from God. And you didn't answer me."
"Adrenaline got its heart beating again."
"But how did you do it?"
He shrugs. "We all have our secrets."
He sits on the sand a few feet from the surf. I sit beside him.
"I was just wrong about it being dead," I say, not willing to concede any point about magic.
"You lost your faith when your mother died," he says. "It's a very common thing, but death and loss and pain don't mean there is no God."
"Are you a priest or something? How did you know about my mother?"
"I know a lot," he says. "And yes, I was a priest. A long time ago."