Angry Dad Took His Kids to a Dark Forest and Left His Wife in a Barn, Then a Raven Appeared And It

When a man tried to abduct his children, their mother fought to find them with the help of a very unlikely friend.

Sarah was a young adult excited to experience post-secondary education. She worked hard throughout high school and earned her place at a university about an hour away from where she grew up. Sarah’s parents were incredibly proud of their daughter; they hoped to raise her to be independent and to know how to go for what she wanted.

Sarah’s parents dropped her off at her new dorm, and after a big tearful goodbye, they left her to embark on a new journey. College is a very exciting time in people’s lives, and Sarah was aiming to grow and blossom into her adult self.

The first few years of the program went swimmingly; however, about halfway through her degree, Sarah met someone who changed the trajectory of her future. Henry was a slightly older student studying psychology. The two of them crossed paths a few days a week because of the overlap in their respective fields of study. With those two, it was love at first sight. Within the first few days of meeting each other, they had exchanged phone numbers and made plans to study together. The way they gravitated towards one another was romantic and sweet, at least it was in their opinions.

When Sarah’s parents came by to visit one weekend, they met Henry. They had noticed that since meeting him, there had been a shift in their daughter. She used to be fixated on her education, but with Henry around, she neglected her schoolwork and fell behind. Sarah’s parents warned her that changing so much for a relationship was dangerous.

Things escalated at the end of that year when Sarah announced that she would not be doing the final year of her degree. Instead, she would prioritize her relationship with Henry. Her parents begged her to wait until after she had got her degree, but their concerns were met with deaf ears.

So Henry and Sarah moved away together, far from her parents and the university. Henry had found a job in forestry that he thought would lead to big things. The couple moved deep into the woods and began establishing a quiet life together. At first, living in a little cottage nestled in a small corner of a vast forest seemed like a fairy tale. As time went on, however, the novelty of this new lifestyle wore off.

Henry was gone in the forest between 12 and 14 hours a day, and when he came back, he was exhausted. Sarah felt isolated, like her only companion was too busy for her. The couple tried to work through this as best they could, but it was inevitable that Sarah would be alone for the majority of her time.

To compensate for the lack of human interaction, Sarah invested a lot of work to make her property animal-friendly. She had particular luck attracting ravens, so she got oodles of bird feed to set up all around the cottage. For a few weeks, Sarah even helped an injured raven recuperate; its leg had broken, so Sarah made a teeny cast for it. After a few weeks, the raven came back, and she gently removed the cast before watching it fly away towards a new phase of its life.

After around a year of living in their fairy tale cottage, the situation developed even further. Sarah was pregnant. She was excited and nervous about becoming a mother. Her trepidation grew as she came to term because Henry was pulling away a bit and spending even more time out of the home. But they were young; she thought that perhaps Henry was nervous too, and working was an outlet for him.

When the time came to deliver the baby, Sarah and Henry were met with a very big surprise; they had conceived twins. They both were beautiful and healthy, and their birth felt like an absolute miracle to Sarah and her parents. It was not obvious at first, but slowly over time, Henry let his opinion be known; he did not like the surprise of a second baby. He was anticipating being kept up all hours of the night and also begrudged the twins for costing him twice as much as he had budgeted.

Henry made his displeasure known by complaining constantly to Sarah about money and putting pressure on her to suddenly find employment. These wishes were unrealistic and completely neglected Sarah’s experience as a first-time mother who had just given birth to twins. Sarah needed to recuperate but struggled to do so on top of caring for the babies and the house.

Moreover, Henry started to become jealous of the babies before the children. Sarah waited on him hand and foot, but now she was too preoccupied to pamper him. This was a turning point in the couple’s relationship. Henry took up drinking, and before long, his pastime became an addiction. Tensions between them grew as he refused to do any housework or parenting, claiming that he had already done his part by working all day.

Sarah tried to still cook and clean and tend to the babies while also giving Henry the royal treatment. It was impossible for her to accomplish all of this, though, and things often slipped through the cracks. Something like leaving the dishes in the sink while she changed the diaper would set Henry off into a rage. He would say that he needed more alcohol to tolerate his wife and children, and the family’s finances quickly began to dwindle.

Sarah had some relief for a few weeks when Henry decided he would stay out in the forest to sleep away from her and the twins. With just her, the babies, and the birds, Sarah could catch a glimpse of the fairy tale life she’d lost over the months, a life of love and peace.

When she realized how unhappy she was, Sarah worked through things with her mother and made a plan to return home. Henry stayed away for so long that Sarah pondered if she should just go to her parents and leave him a note. But right then, he emerged from the woods, dirty and stumbling. He looked really out of it, so Sarah left the twins in their crib and ran out to meet him.

When she got to him, she asked if he was hurt, and he stuttered and stumbled towards their barn in response. Sarah wondered what he might need from there and followed him to the barn. Once inside, Henry’s body language completely changed; he was now looking more sober than ever. He pushed Sarah to the ground and ran out of the barn, locking it behind him.

Horrified, Sarah immediately looked for a way out of the barn. She saw through a window that Henry had taken her babies and was striding confidently back into the woods. Sarah’s heart pounded, and her blood roared in her ears. She grabbed some tools and smashed the window open. She crawled out of the barn, scared and desperate.

Sarah ran in the direction where Henry had gone, but she did not know the land nearly as well as him, and soon she felt lost and unsure of where to go. Panic set in as Sarah paused to think about which direction she should head in. She felt hopeless, but then an extremely unlikely hero appeared. She was shaking and crying until a raven swooped down and perched on a tree branch just a few feet in front of her. The bird stretched out its wings and then flew a short distance away.

At a loss, Sarah followed it. They continued this pattern for hours until the raven finally led Sarah to a cave. She could hear cries and realized that the raven had taken her to her children

. Amazed and speechless, she looked at it with grateful eyes, and only then did she realize that one of its legs looked a little crooked. It was the raven she had helped years before. It had come to her in her moment of need to repay her kindness.

Sarah didn’t waste any more time. She snuck into the cave and moved towards the sound of crying. Her twins were there, scared but unharmed. She scooped them up in her arms, and again, with the incredible help of the raven, she was able to make it out of the woods. Instead of going back home, she fled to the local police station and told the officers what had happened. They wanted her to stay a while to give another statement, but she decided to take her kids and move back to her parents right away.

She had given her best years of life to a man who had deceived her and put their kids in terrible danger, and she would never think of him again. Sarah never forgot the raven’s kindness, and even when she moved back to the city, she kept feeding the little birds who would sometimes fly past her balcony in loving memory of her hero.