I lived on a street with lots of houses on it, though I was on the very end. There was only one family who lived next to me. There was the mum, the dad, and their little daughter Jennifer. I sometimes spent time with the little girl, babysitting for her parents when they had to go somewhere. It was very interesting talking to the six-year-old girl, because she had an interesting collection of imaginary friends from being an only child.

One of the imaginary friends came up in our conversations a lot. She was called Elizabeth, Ellie or Beth for short sometimes, and had been described to me in intricate detail. Elizabeth had blonde hair, brown eyes, freckles, and was nine years old.

The house they lived in had a basement, but Jennifer was warned not to go down there. I had been down several times to get things, and I wasn't sure why she wasn't allowed in that room. Luckily, so I never let Jennifer go down the basement stairs, her parents told me.

They used to have a cat called Charlie. He was adorable, and Jennifer looked after him with care and kindness. One day, Jennifer asked her parents if they could let Charlie down into the basement because Elizabeth wanted to play with him down there, where there was lots of places for him to climb. The parents let Charlie into the basement and shut the door so that they would know he was down there. About half an hour later, they opened the door and looked for Charlie downstairs, but they couldn't find him.

About six months later, the family moved houses. I didn't really miss them, as the missing cat situation made me feel uncomfortable, but the next family to come in made me nervous. I had no idea why for weeks. It was another family of three, a mum and a dad and a little girl. I decided not to speak to the family if I could help it, as I didn't want to get into another dilemma, but the parents asked me to babysit once more and I couldn't really say no when they had no one else left to ask.

Introduced myself to the small girl. She was a bit older than Jennifer had been, so hopefully she wouldn't have any imaginary friends up her sleeves. She had sweet freckles on her cheeks and her nose, long blonde hair and brown eyes. I couldn't remember her until she told me her name.

Elizabeth.

I talked myself out of being afraid of this sweet little girl, assuring myself that it was just a coincidence that she looked the same, was the same age, had the same name and the same nicknames and loved cats. After babysitting her, the parents came home and insisted that I stay for a little longer. Elizabeth asked to play in the basement before bedtime, and her parents let her. The little girl shut the door behind her as she went down.

When it was time for me to go home, the parents went to get Elizabeth from downstairs. She was gone.