Next, I try breathing differently. I learned in yoga class that the breath is the gateway to the soul. I wonder if my breath sends a signal. First, I inhale deeply, trying to fill myself up with oxygen. When that doesn’t work, I try the kundalini breath of fire, which also comes from yoga class. It involves snapping the belly in quickly and forcing air out through the nostrils. It looks like you are panting like a dog except your mouth is closed.

“Are you OK?” Jennifer asks concernedly. “You seem distracted. Everything all right?”

Nothing works. I grow frustrated. Tension builds in my brow.

“I’m just trying to work through something but can’t seem to get it.”

“What are you trying to figure out?”

“The ways of the universe.”

Jennifer laughs at my melodrama.

“Aren’t we all? I’ve learned in my life that the more you chase something, the harder it is to catch. Sometimes you just have to relax. Let the answer come to you.”

I accept her advice mainly out of exhaustion. I’ve done everything I can think of to call the Keepers. I scan the eclectic objects in Jennifer’s office to take my mind off this impossible task. She’s added some things since last semester. A signed tennis ball on her desk. The only tennis players I know are Venus and Serena Williams, who I feel like are my sisters even though I never met them. Every time a Black person achieves anything, all of us feel a kinship and claim to their accomplishment. Public figures become more than just people with extraordinary talent. They become family. Close enough to feel like you know them, but distant enough to realize you will probably never meet. The strange looking glass of celebrity.

My eyes keep moving around her office. A framed picture of a brown-haired, dorky-looking white man with big teeth. He’s not cute at all, I think to myself. So why would she hang him on the wall? White people. I shake my head in amusement.

“That’s Jerry Seinfeld,” Jennifer says, noticing my gaze. “One of the greatest comedians ever.”

“Huh, never heard of him.”

“You know, Echo, we’ve met a few times now and I’m wondering if we shouldn’t try to deepen our work? Are you open to that?”

“What does that mean?”

“Unpacking some of the more difficult things that happened to you. Only if you feel ready, of course.”

My enthusiasm for contacting the Keepers wanes. A wall erects between us. Haven’t I done enough work? Aren’t I healed after everything I experienced in astral Cleveland? Now she wants me to excavate more bones from a padlocked graveyard. I become enraged.