Young Elizabeth Courtney always took great pleasure in the waters. Her Ma and Pa were convinced that if she could, she would live in them bodies of constant rhythm. Oceans, ponds, rivers, you name it, she would have most likely swam in it before. They were her escape, she would put it. Eliza, as they called the little girl of ten, casted all her trust in said, tame waters.

She especially adored their cabin of four years. It was a private land, the perfect amount of space from the bustling of city people. But close enough to where they could reach out if they ever needed.

One night, at the stroke of 12:00, Miss Courtney’s old alarm clock in her room started up with its incessant ring. She’d thought to herself that maybe she had winded it wrong before she slept. But no matter how many times she tried to stop the dang thing, it just kept on ringing.

And ringing.

And ringing.

It was a surprise her folks never got woken up. A harsh wind kicked the pretty little lace curtains of her window open. The moon shone on her face, and the lake infront of the house hummed with a certain eeriness that she shockingly to a liking to. Eliza’s brain completely shut out everything else. For some reason, the girls feet took one step after another until her hand turned the cool metal of a doorknob, and she was outside where the wind howled yet the lake sat perfectly still. The moons rays glistened against said, silent lake and reflected itself into its waters.

Back in the cabin, Eliza’s folks were startled awake by the slam of their front door being blown open by a gust of wind. They gast a glance at one another before jumping out of bed. In their minds, someone broken into the house and they needed to keep their little girl safe.

While Ma went to close the door, Pa ran to Eliza’s room. Ma suddenly gasped loudly and slapped a weak hand to her chest. “Kell get over here this instant!”

He ran to her side “Eliza ain’t in ‘er room, Ava.”

She pointed a shaken finger to the lake. “What in the good Lords name is she doin’ at the lake such a time?” She questioned, astonished.

The two of them called to her repeatedly with no answer. The little girl just kept staring at that lake like there was nothing else living. So her Ma and Pa began to walk down to the dock, but the second they took their first steps, Eliza fell into the lake.

The waters suddenly began to crash and turn and looked to swollow her up. She screamed and held onto the edge of the dock for dear life. “Ma, Pa, help!”

They ran up the dock, however in vein. She succumbed to the waters greedy waves. “Oh my God!” Her Ma exclaimed. Tears streamed down her face. The wind calmed, the lake returned to its normal banter and Pa jumped into the thing with no hesitation. He ordered Mrs. Courtney to fetch the police that instant, as he searched desperately for their daughter.

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Elizabeth Evelyn Courtney drowned at the age of ten, at precisely 1:03 in the morning.

Police looked for hours and found nothing. One of them had said in the twenty-seven years he’d been on duty, he’d never happened upon such a case as Miss Eliza Courtney’s. They could do nothing more than presume her to be dead, seeing as there was no body found and no evidence she was alive, either.

Mr. and Mrs. Courtney moved out of that cabin having being haunted by Eliza’s sudden disappearance…and being _literally_ haunted too.

Every so often, Mrs. Courtney would be washing the dishes at night, and the same thing would happen. They kept everything in Elizabeth’s room as she left it, and the alarm would start up again. Ma would rush to shut it off, but it wouldn’t stop. Then she’d turned her chin up and stare out the window in horror, as Eliza stood at the very end of the dock once more, staring at the lake. She blinked, thinking maybe she was seeing things. But there she stayed, in her yellow nightgown and blonde hair tide back with a blue ribbon, her hair blowing in the heavy wind. Then she fell. And she screamed. And she held onto that deck for her life.

Mrs. Courtney screamed for her husband, Kell, and ran outside, determined to save her. She wouldn’t let her little girl go this time. Not again. “Kell, she’s there! Kell save her!”

Kell rushed out of the kitchen and left his paper to the floor. But the moment they opened the front door, Eliza was gone. The waves were vaccant. Everything was as it had been—blissful and steady.

And this sort of thing happened repeatedly. Over and over again, until it nearly drove the Courtney’s to madness. No matter how many times they reported it to the authorities, they never believed them. They only showed up to show they cared, but eventually told them they were seeing things.

To this day, for them foolish teenagers stupid enough to test the tale of Eliza and the Lake Cabin, if you were to sneak off to the abandoned lake cabin at exactly the same date and time, you can still see Eliza standing at the very edge of the dock. But when you look away and then back again, she’s nowhere to be seen.