"So, I just concentrate?" Snow asked.
"Concentrating would be good." Grenarin replied, "But it is more important that you WANT it to move. Concentrate on wanting."
Alright then. Snow looked at the flame. She imagined it bending over, just a little bit. She tried to imagine it happening. She glared, purposefully getting angry that it was not doing what she wanted. She focused really, really hard on wanting it.
Nothing happened.
She must not have wanted it enough. How could she make herself want it more? Without really stopping to process whether it was a good idea or not, she reached out with her hand and rested it in the flame – surely that would provide ample desire.
"OH!" Snow jerked her hand back, now sporting a unhappy read splotch, and felt her cheeks color in embarrassment as she realized what she had just impulsively done. "That wasn't very smart."
"It worked though." Grenarin said thoughtfully.
"What?" Snow said, "I didn't see anything."
"Then you weren't looking." Grenarin replied with a smile, "As soon as your hand entered the flame, it sprang up higher."
"That's not magic!" Snow protested, "That always happens when . . ." She stopped, and a realization hit her like lighting out of the blue. She had been thinking about this all wrong. Fire grew. That is what it did. She had been trying to out-stubborn it, push it into doing something it didn't want to do. But if this experiment was based on the idea of it being alive, then that wasn't going to work. She needed the fire to think that it wanted to do what she wanted it to do. She needed to convince it.
New plan. She put her hand (the unburned one) next to the flame, exactly where she had wanted it to bend. But instead of trying to pull the existing flame toward it, she willed it to grow. Right here. She imagined her determination, and desire making a bridge from her to the candle and drawing it towards her, like a benevolent father giving a gift to his son. Her determination was a promise, and that made all the difference.
The small flame on the candle plumed out sideways toward her hand, like a bubble from a smooth surface, impossibly graceful and surreal in its slowness, like a flower opening its petals. It was fascinating, and Snow was so focused on its progress, that she only realized it was threatening to envelop her hand, moments after it had done so.
She jerked back in shock, and the candle flickered back to its former appearance. Grenarin was staring at her, equally surprised, and Snow stared at her hand – completely unharmed.