<p> <b>Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. </b> <br> <br> Lips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like 'guilt, and guilt, and guilt': these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom. <br> <br> 'But what <i>is</i> the ninth kingdom?' she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. 'It is the kingdom of the frozen will,' comes the reply. 'There is no going back.' <br> <br> Sylvia Plath's strange, dark tale of independence over infanticide, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.</p>