The perfume bottle tipped over, she didn't know how. She wasn't paying attention while getting ready in her room. The stinky, sticky substance seeped over the items on her vanity -- love letters tied in red ribbon, a cameo pendant, the edges of a whalebone brush.
She stopped, not sure what to do. She could leave it, a testament to inattention. A mark that she'd been here. Or should she tell the museum curators what happened? This wasn't really her room, after all. She was only visiting. She wondered what the consequences would be. She always made it a point not to ruin historical artifacts. But this was an accident, wasn't it? Or subconsciously, was she trying to go back to that time, to have some influence on the past? The past had always had such a big, unwanted influence on her. Maybe it was time to change the rules of the game a little.
In the end, she walked away. The spill sat there for a while, eventually making itself known by wafting toward the gift shop.
She never returned.
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