The Artificer

Chapter One, Iris Fröhlich: Rising Early to See the Sun

Today is a Wednesday morning, the time so early that only the birds should be awake. I arrived early by car at the Worth family's mansion, buzzed in by the twenty-four hour security, and am ready to make the morning preparations for a Wednesday schedule. I make those preparations alone and usually am not joined by additional help unless the home is expecting a high-profile visitor. Today should be a normal day. The evening staff will take over once I'm gone.

I have many responsibilities as the main homemaker employed by this family. Yes, I know, homemaker, housekeeper, both are used interchangeably. Same with 'maid.' From preparing the meals, tending to the laundry, childcare services, managing the home's upkeep, gardening, as well as scheduling maintenance and repair services, to even performing auto repairs, I do a little bit of everything. Just call my name and I'll be there!

My name is Iris Fröhlich. On paper, my surname is written as Frohlich because of some bogus naming law. Or, we think that's my surname. The person who rescued me from a life-changing car crash didn't understand what my departed mother was saying, and she had no ID. The driver who hit her, the very same person who rescued me, only recalled seeing her run out into the I-96 with a bundle in her arms. No one knows who she was and no one was able to identify her after her passing. The body was in a terrible shape, thus, unrecognizable. It couldn't even be buried properly, from what I heard. My last name might not even be Fröhlich. It probably isn't, right? It sounds like a foreigner's name, if anything. No one has come forward to claim me as family, though I was eventually adopted after floating around the foster care system for a while. I kept my last name because I like it.

On my signatures, I persistently add the umlaut over the 'o'. The naming laws in my state aren't as free as its neighbors, so the umlaut was denied for whatever reason. I don't need to accent the letter– when you say it in person, most people don't think of the spelling. I do add the umlaut because I think the 'ö' looks like a funny emoji. It resembles a frog's face. You can see it when I tell you so, right? Isn't it cute? Maybe my surname is actually Froglich. I don't know if that word means anything, but if not for the meaning of my surname, I might accept my froggy name.

'Cheerful.' That's more or less the translation from German to English. I don't speak the language, but I know someone who does. He said the name suits me. I agree with that. I consider myself a cheerful, happy person. I like my name and I like what I currently do for a wage. It's a fun way to spend my time while I finish up my business degree.

The family who employs me certainly is appreciative. I've known them and their estate, their business, for about two years now. I started working as a housekeeper when I turned twenty-one, and random summer jobs before then. The jump up from housekeeper to homemaker was rather big, especially for a family with so many demands, but I've been able to keep up.

I don't plan on doing this job forever— I want to open a restaurant one day. It wasn't even my intention to become a homemaker. So how did I get here? The first memory that comes to mind is the mother, Odette Worth, a beautiful fashion model who saw me arriving at work for a neighbor (who since moved away) and suddenly yanked me to the side, asking about apples. I think she was drunk when she approached me, but I happened upon apples out of season and thought to share a baked pie with my employer at the time. I instead wound up giving that entire pie to Odette. The next day after that, I woke up in my apartment and opened the window, only to see her crawling up the wall to my window like a spider. She didn't even explain herself— beautiful in her designer clothes and high heels, without missing a beat, she handed me a massive wad of cash and asked if I could cook for her "for the rest of my life." I took the cash and have been working for them ever since. Odette pays me well.

I've entered quietly from the side of the mansion's west wing. The grand windows allow sunlight to flood through later in the morning. The glass on those windows won't let anything else through. They're bulletproof and almost all of them are alarmed.