Just as good as you

Chapter 4 - Like Mother Like Daughter

After meeting Hosea, Elizabeth rented a basement room off the gunsmith as business was slow. She began doing as her mother did, charging pregnant women a small amount to rid them of their unborn child. She did it just as her mother did, safely and hygienically. Watching her mother for all those years paid off. Before all of this Elizabeth was determined to follow in her mother's footsteps and make the world a more bearable place for vulnerable women, at fourteen her mother began to teach her the basics, how to clean equipment and provide aftercare.

In the first week, to her astonishment, Elizabeth had thirty-five customers, earning her a sum of seventy dollars. She had completed each procedure safely and effectively, so the word must've spread through the towns women. Elizabeth used an alias when she was operating, Rosalind, after her mother. By the second Wednesday, Elizabeth had already made what she had in the first week, and desperate women were still flooding through her doors in tears. On Thursday, a young shy girl walked in with disheveled hair and a dirty dress on.

"H-hello miss" Elizabeth welcomed, the young girl smiled but didn't reply.

"Two dollar treatment?" Elizabeth asked, the girl nodded, and Elizabeth walked her through to the back room.

"I'm Rosalind, now lie flat on your back there with your knees up" Elizabeth said, pulling out her tools, she didn't ask questions, she knew this ordeal was traumatic enough let alone having to recount events that caused them to be here.

Swiftly Elizabeth completed the procedure and handed the girl a small package, the girl took it sheepishly and handed her two dollars before hurrying out.

Elizabeth was tidying up and washing the blood away when the gunsmith burst in.

"She was so young you monster!" He roared

"I'm not the monster, the person that did that to her is" Elizabeth replied calmly

"This is it, I'm drawing the line here, I thought you only did this for adult whores"

Elizabeth shot him a very angry look and told him to get out. The owner left mumbling about alerting the law which caused Elizabeth to go cold and rigid, she packed up her things and shot out of the building, jumped on the nearest horse and raced out of Saint Denis. From behind, she could hear whistles and shouting, she knew those were for her so she spurred on her horse and pushed it to the limits.

She got as far as the foot of a large mountain in the West Grizzlies, where the green grass beneath the horse's hooves turned to thick white snow, and the horse began to slow. Elizabeth kicked the horse but it snorted in denial so she decided to let it walk for a moment, as she got further up the mountain she noticed a small wooden shack. She turned the horse and hitched it up outside.

"Hello?" She called whilst knocking "It is extremely cold out here," there was no reply so Elizabeth shoved open the door revealing a box room with minimal furniture and no one to be seen. She pulled the door shut behind her and fell into a single chair in the corner of the room, her anxiety caught up with her and her breathing quickened. Glancing around the small room she noticed a few provisions, a few cans of vegetables, a half drunk bottle of whisky and an open packet of cigarettes and matches. Thinking a cigarette may help her breathe she pulled one out of the packet and lit it. She inhaled the thick smoke and it clouded her lungs causing her to cough violently.

"Least I can breathe now" she laughed to herself in between choking, she sat back down and finished off her cigarette. Elizabeth's mother and father used to smoke,

"They never coughed like me" she thought "Maybe it takes practise" so she lit up another one and inhaled deeply, she coughed less this time, but quickly a haze filled her head and made her dizzy, she kept inhaling anyway, any feeling was better than the one she felt right now.