11"x 14" framed painting, acrylic on canvas -  The Door Opens Inward
 
I found myself standing at the edge of an ancient castle garden. Mist coiled through the hedges like silver ribbon, and moonlight dripped across the rose garden. It was one of those dreams—the ones where you know you're dreaming, and yet the world pulses with a reality so vivid it eclipses waking life.
 
Behind me loomed the castle, its spires piercing the clouds like thoughts reaching for the divine. And there—she stood.
 
A girl with auburn curls cascading like a waterfall, an intricate silver headpiece resting on her forehead. A white dove balanced delicately on her finger, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. When she looked at me, her eyes—impossibly large and rimmed with shadow—softened with recognition.
 
"I’m not the product of your imagination," she announced. "My name is Sibyl. I live in this castle, and it’s the year 1487. I came here because only within this lucid dream can I reach the staircase to the top of the oldest oak. I need to add new logs to the fire. My grandfather told me you'd come. He said you have a message for me."
 
I hesitated for a second, then blurted out before I could think of anything:
"The door to that staircase opens inward."
 
Sibyl nodded. Then, she looked past me, toward the light cracking across the dream-sky.
 
"You’ll wake up soon," she whispered.
 
And like mist surrendering to morning, she vanished.