‘“My mother’s ring!” cried No One. She reached in but the tar was burning hot and scalded her fingers, staining her hands no matter how hard she scrubbed. When her husband returned, he saw the marks on her fingers and was furious. “You have tricked me!” he yelled. “You have betrayed my trust!” He picked her up, carrying her into his secret room and throwing her into the barrel of tar.

‘Six months passed and summer came, the forest shimmering with heat, as the sisters’ father became increasingly frail. One day, the man on the white horse returned. “Your sister ran off with another and so I must choose myself a new bride,” he said, and this time his eye fell on Nothing, the middle daughter. Again, there was an offer of money, again her younger sister and their father refused but Nothing could see that life was still hard, her father sickening more each day. And so it was that Nothing headed off with her newly betrothed, disappearing into the deep dark forest on his white horse and onwards to the huge stone palace. Weeks passed until, one day, her husband told her he would have to go away. “You can do anything you wish,’” he said.’

‘You can go anywhere you like!’ interrupts the oldest child.

‘But there is one thing you must never do,’ says Natalya. ‘And that is—’

‘To enter my private room?’ a little voice suggests.

‘Quite right,’ Natalya says, with a smile, before continuing. ‘It was as before. Again, the keys were handed over and just like her inquisitive older sister, Nothing opened every door a dozen times or more, explored every corner of every room. All except one. The small golden key felt as if it burned through her hand. And so it was that Nothing opened the door to the secret chamber. So it was that she too saw the golden ring with the emerald in it, singed her fingers on the tar and met the same fate as her older sister, drowned in the huge barrel.

‘Months passed and the man on the white horse returned to the farm one final time. “I will go willingly,” Nobody said to her father. “For it is the only way I will find out what happened to my sisters.” And so Nobody accompanied the stranger on his white horse into the deep woods and to the huge stone palace where she was to live. Until, one day, her husband said he would have to go away . . . ’

Natalya smiles at the children and they take their cue, chanting along. ‘You can do anything you wish. You can go anywhere you like but there is one thing you must never do and that is to enter my private room. None must cross its threshold bar me and me alone.’