1664 While preparing a meal, Griet is told she is to become a maid for the house of Vermeer at 16, specifically to clean Vermeer’s studio. Leaving her mother, father and her little sister, Agnes, Griet travels to the Papists’ Corner to start her job as a maid. She meets the children of the house first, Maertge, Cornelia, Lisbeth, Aleydis, and Johannes. Tanneke is another maid whom feels Griet’s presence is a rival to hers. She also has not found favor in the eyes of her young mistress Catharina.   Griet starts her tasks of cleaning, cooking and buying fish and meat from the market. At the market, she meets Pieter the father and the son. Griet then starts her work of the cleaning studio. There, she discovers the beauty of Vermeer’s work. She also starts an unlikely formal and odd friendship with old mistress, Maria Thins. Griet also goes home for the first time after a week of work to her family. Griet finally meets Vermeer after a long while. He shows her the camera obscura and Griet begins another odd friendship with her master. While buying meat, Pieter the son and father tell her that Griet’s family may be quarantined because of a plague. Running to her brother, Frans, Griet asks him to visit their mother and father. Later, Griet discovers that her sister, Agnes, has died from the plague. Catharina has another boy, Franciscus. To celebrate, Griet and the other maids prepare for a birth feast where Griet meets the perverted patron, van Ruijven. Vermeer seems to be on “artists block” until he sees Griet cleaning his studio. After that, he begins painting again.

	1665 Visiting her family again, Griet learns her parents don’t approve of Vermeer’s paintings. Winter has set in so, Griet goes to the apothecary to buy medicine as well as raw paint materials for Vermeer. Arriving home, Griet finds out that Cornelia has broken a painted tile given to Griet by her father. Griet learns how to see the world through an artists eyes as well as how to create paint. Various people in the household eventually keep this secret.   At church, Griet’s mother invites Pieter over for dinner. Griet’s mother and father would rather have Griet marry a butcher’s son than become a maid for the rest of her life. For his paintings, Vermeer starts using Griet as models to inspire. Griet starts to become enlightened in the artists’ ways and changes one of Vermeer’s pieces, which was to Vermeer’s benefit.   Griet’s parents still insist of her marrying Pieter the son but she refuses. Griet realizes that, even though she is Protestant and Vermeer is Catholic, that religion doesn’t reflect in paintings. Griet also develops a special relationship with Maertge, the eldest daughter to hone her future mom skills. Unlike Maertge, Cornelia tries to kick Griet out by falsely accusing her of stealing young mistress’ comb.   Van Ruijven visits Vermeer and demands that he paints a picture of Griet for him, being the perverted individual he is. While painting, van Ruijven constantly sexually assaults Griet. Griet’s mother and father are still critical of Vermeer’s paintings and ideas. Griet tries to confide in her brother but learns that he got in trouble and was being punished. Vermeer thought he wasn’t going to paint Griet, but, again, she inspires him to paint her.

	1666 Griet slowly transforms into the painting that Vermeer paints. Working on two paintings, Vermeer finishes with Griet piercing her ears in order to wear the pearl earrings. Griet turns 18 and on her birthday, Pieter visits the Vermeer household to ask for Griet’s hand in marriage.   Catharina gets jealous of the how Griet spends more time with Vermeer than Catharina herself. Her jealousy gets directed toward accusing Griet of stealing the pearl earrings in order for Vermeer to draw her. Catharina almost stabs the painting only to be stopped by her husband. Catharina goes into labor and Griet runs to the 8-pointed star where she makes her decision for what to do with the rest of her life.

	1676 Griet runs from the Vermeer household and marries Pieter the son and has two sons. Griet picks up the butcher trade with her husband and has gotten used to the environment of meat and blood. 10 years after running from Vermeer, Griet learns her former master has passed away. 2 months after the news, Vermeer’s will was read and Griet was called to the house of Vermeer for the last time. Griet learns that in his will, he wanted Griet to have the pearl earrings. Before leaving the house, Cornelia asks if she could have the pearls and she gets slapped. ^^ Griet sells the pearls to a trade-man for Twenty-Guilders. Fifteen of them would go to the debt the Vermeer house still owed the butcher and the last five Griet would never spend.