Chapter 16
1002 Words
Maria's response was immediate: *Yes, please. Tomorrow afternoon?*
After arranging to meet at a café near the museum, Shantali set down her phone with a sense of purpose she hadn't expected. Not the desperate need to understand that had driven her to the library, but the gentler impulse to help someone else avoid the same pitfalls.
"You're going to become the unofficial cobra counsellor, aren't you?" David said with an amused smile.
"Maybe. If it helps people choose love over obsession." She curled back into his arms, feeling the rightness of it. "Dr Hassan mentioned that Dr Thorne left instructions about helping others. Maybe this is how it's supposed to work: each person who learns the lesson becomes a guide for the next."
"A secret society of former Cobra witnesses," David mused. "I like it."
As evening settled over their empty apartment, they made plans for the next day—furniture shopping, dinner with David's grandmother, and Shantali's coffee meeting with Maria. Ordinary activities that felt extraordinary in their simple promise of a shared future.
"I should finish the novel soon," Shantali said as they gathered their things to return to David's place for the night. "Before we get too busy with wedding planning and new jobs."
"Day shift starts Monday," David reminded her. "It'll be strange working normal hours."
"Good, strange," Shantali replied, taking one last look at the cobra statue on its shelf. The amber eyes seemed less mysterious now, more like a benevolent guardian watching over their new beginning.
As they locked the apartment door behind them, Shantali felt a profound sense of satisfaction as the story reached its natural conclusion. Not the desperate need for more chapters, but the peaceful certainty that this particular tale had found its proper ending.
Tomorrow, she would help Maria navigate her own crossroads. Next week, they would begin their new life together in earnest. Someday her novel would find its way to someone else who needed to read about choosing love over fear.
But tonight, walking hand in hand with David through the autumn streets toward their shared future, Shantali Mae Cross was exactly where she belonged, present in the real world, anchored by love rather than lost in smoke and shadow.
The next afternoon, Shantali arrived early at the café near the museum, choosing a corner table with a view of the street. She recognised Maria Santos immediately when she entered—the same haunted expression Shantali had worn just days ago, the look of someone carrying visions too heavy for one person to bear alone.
Maria was younger than expected, perhaps twenty-four, with tired eyes that darted nervously around the café before settling on Shantali. She approached hesitantly, clutching a notebook against her chest like armour.
"Ms Cross?"
"Please, call me Shantali." She gestured to the empty chair. "And you can put the notebook away. We're not here to document anything."
Maria sat, keeping the notebook in her lap. "I don't understand what's happening to me. Garcia said you might, but you won't talk about the actual... incidents?"
"Because talking about them isn't what helps," Shantali said gently. "Tell me about this promotion instead. What's holding you back from deciding?"
For the next hour, Maria poured out her dilemma: a dream job at a prestigious museum in San Francisco, but leaving behind her boyfriend of two years and the life they'd built together. The promotion represented everything she'd worked toward professionally, but the thought of losing Marcus made her physically ill.
"The visions show me both futures," Maria whispered, glancing around to ensure no one was listening. "In one, I'm successful but alone. In the other, I stay here and always wonder what I gave up."
Shantali felt the echo of her own recent struggles. "What does your heart tell you when you strip away the career prestige and the fear of regret?"
"That I love Marcus more than any job." Maria's voice cracked slightly. "But what if I resent him later for holding me back?"
"Is he holding you back, or are you holding yourself back by framing this as an either-or choice?" Shantali leaned forward. "Have you talked to Marcus about this? Really talked, not just mentioned it in passing?"
Maria shook her head. "I'm afraid he'll tell me to take it, to be noble and sacrifice for my career. Or worse, that he'll ask me to stay and I'll blame him later."
"So you're making his decision for him." Shantali's tone was understanding, not accusatory. "What if there's a third option you haven't considered?"
They talked for another thirty minutes, Shantali gently guiding Maria away from the supernatural aspects of her experience toward the human choice at its centre. By the time they parted, Maria looked lighter, more grounded.
"Thank you," Maria said as they stood to leave. "I'm going to talk to Marcus tonight. Really talk."
"Good. And Maria?" Shantali touched the younger woman's arm. "Whatever you decide, make sure it's because you choose it, not because you're running from something else."
Maria nodded, then hesitated. "Do the visions ever come back? After you make your choice?"
"No," Shantali said with quiet certainty. "They've shown you what you needed to see. The rest is up to you."
As Maria left, clutching her notebook less desperately now, Shantali felt a sense of completion. She'd broken the cycle that had claimed Dr Thorne and nearly ensnared Dr Hassan, the obsessive pursuit of understanding at the cost of one's own life.
Her phone buzzed with a text from David: *Grandmother approved of our furniture choices. She's now planning our entire wedding menu. Help.*
Smiling, Shantali replied: *On my way. Tell her I'm allergic to shellfish. (I'm not, but it might slow her down.)*
Outside the café, autumn sunlight warmed her face as she looked toward the museum's imposing façade in the distance. The Egyptian wing with its cobra-headed canopic jars felt like another lifetime now, a brief detour that had ultimately guided her to where she needed to be.
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