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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 04/05/2026

If you're in a particular launderette in Cardiff, watch for the machine at the far end, next to the vending machine that spits out black tar in flimsy plastic cups. No matter whose wash is, if you watch it go round you may see a small, hand-knitted child's mitten, navy blue. (🧵1/2)

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 28/03/2026

Delighted to have this new short collection from James Everington drop through the door. If you don’t know James’ work I can’t recommend it highly enough. Out today from Black Shuck Press.

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 03/03/2026

Terrific time at the UK Ghost Story Festival this weekend. Three days of panels, workshops and performances, lots of inspiration and met some lovely people. favourite quote from any of the panels was maybe Will MacLean talking about the need to begin ‘reweirding your house’.

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 21/02/2026

(text version in the alt text, or: substack.com/@mapsofthelo...)

NOTHING

It’s that strange hour when it’s not quite dusk but the day is fading away, and the blue of the fine autumn day has shaded from sky blue into something darker. You’ve been for a meeting somewhere in a part of town you don’t know that well, and decided to walk home as the air is crisp and you like to find new streets, quirky architecture, fading adverts from a hundred years ago just visible on a gable end like a ghost, the neon lines of modern graffiti.

You turn a corner down a side street because the big road you were on looks like it curves off in the wrong direction, and you know you need to head towards where the sun is setting. This thought pleases you, as if you are some kind of great explorer who can navigate by moss and the flight of geese.

The street you’re now on is a row of mews houses, the occasional car parked up on the pavement, an atmosphere of calm satisfaction and newly painted front doors.

There’s only one person on the street other than you. A little further down, a man has stopped in the middle of the road, and is waving his hands up towards the sky. You slow a little, think about turning. You don’t want to be judgmental, but you’ve had some bad experiences. He is smartly dressed, a dark mac over what looks like a blue suit, but all the same, you slow.

He gestures with his hands again, and a perfect circle is removed from the sky, as if a hole has been cut in it. The deepening blue is gone, and the blackness within the circle is darker than the dark of night, darker than anything that you have seen or will see again.

You stop, and maybe you cry out or maybe you scuff your shoe or maybe he just knows, and the man looks over his shoulder in alarm, sees you there, and quickly waves a hand again and the sky is back, uninterrupted blue. He hurries off, you stand there a little while until an Uber Eats moped swings round the corner on a short cut and nearly runs you over.

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 21/02/2026

Newsletter out now. An underpass that doesn’t behave, something learning how to be human a word at a time, an odd tune leaking through you into the world, strange labyrinths, thoughts on ghost stories and why it's best to never see the monsters. mapsofthelost.substack.com/p/maps-of-th...

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 01/02/2026

Tonight’s watch. No, never blow a whi- oh. Too late. Decent adaptation of Elizabeth Jane Howard‘s excellent “Three Miles Up”.

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 31/01/2026

Reading and watching over the last week, and up next for this weekend, The Turn Of The Screw/The Innocents, The Haunting Of Hill House/The Haunting. Up next for tomorrow, The Uninvited. Got to say though, Henry James, end a sentence once in a while, PLEASE. Shirley Jackson’s prose though 😘

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 07/11/2025

(2/2) You’ll notice her because she always clutches an orange Sainsbury’s carrier bag and sometimes she’ll raise it and speak into it. Don’t be afraid of her. But don’t mock her either, because although you shouldn’t be afraid of her, you absolutely should be terrified of who she’s speaking to.

a woman holding a Sainsbury's supermarket carrier bag open

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 18/07/2025

There’s a dip in Rathcarbery Road as it runs through the Armagh countryside, and after heavy rain its lowest point is a shallow, dark pool. If you are walking along the road, shuffling along the verge to avoid the puddle, keep your gaze on the hedges. Look into the pool and you will see (1/1)

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 04/07/2025

(you can read the story in the alt text if the image text is too small, or you use a screen reader)

CRATEDIGGER

In a particular record shop in Manchester, you might be flipping through the racks of vinyl and come across an album that comes in a plain sleeve in a slightly unsettling green. There’s no track listing on the sleeve, no artist name, no label. If you slide it out, the same is true on the record itself. The vinyl is black, the label a queasy green.

You speak to the man behind the counter who is busy adding up numbers with a piece of paper and a calculator. He frowns, looks at the record in the same way that you did, then shrugs. It’s only priced at four quid, so you buy it just in case, because you fancy yourself as something of a crate-digger.

When you play it though, there’s nothing but static, although if you listen to it long enough you can almost imagine that you can hear voices, distant, as if in another room a long way down a corridor. When it finishes, you end up crying uncontrollably and you have no idea why.

You don’t play it again. You give it to a charity shop because you have an unreasonable fear of just smashing it, which you can’t articulate, and if you ever come across the sound of static again, you switch off, leave the room, walk away.

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 29/06/2025

...If you hang around the pretty village green for a while, you will see that none of the locals sit there, and that no matter what time of day it is, the bench always appears to be in shadow... substack.com/@mapsofthelo...?

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 22/06/2025

Read on, at Substack. substack.com/profile/8041...

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 16/06/2025

Ah, but we know though, don’t we.

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 18/05/2025

You struggle a breath in, blink, but nothing changes except a low buzzing and crackling that seems to come from the air itself. The seagull hangs there, frozen in flight, its wings out stiff, the left lower than the right as it had started its bank towards the water. substack.com/@mapsofthelo...

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 10/05/2025

"Orchestral music, ghosting in and out, voices in languages you couldn’t understand. In those early hours in those confused, painful years, you took comfort in this world outside the boredom of your home, the confinement of your village, the horrors of your school." substack.com/profile/8041...

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 02/05/2025

“Watch,” he says, and he points a long finger at a lime tree just down the street from you. There’s another tearing of the sky and this time a bang, you’re so dazzled by the white brightness you just see spots in front of your eyes for a moment... substack.com/@mapsofthelo...

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Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com · 28/04/2025

You can’t drive down a motorway numbered the M72 because there is no M72. You won’t find it on any maps, because it isn’t on any maps, because there is no M72...or at least, that’s how it is after The Event, and no one knows about the event either. (more:) substack.com/profile/8041...

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