Full Summary:

Before Sofia was born, the Quinn's had another daughter, one that was kidnapped on the day after Sofia was born. What happens when that young girl is found? Will she leave behind the only family she has ever known? And how will Callie and the Fosters react to learning that Callie has another sister? How will Jude react?

Aleyla Moon Horwitz:

Before I was two, I grew up in a loving and peaceful home. But on the day my little sister was born, things changed. My parents loved me, but they never saw what was about to come. I remember holding my little sister and cradling her on the bed with my mom. And the next thing I remember is not being with my family ever again. I don't remember my real name; all I know is the name that was given to me. The people that took me were criminals and named me before they lost custody of me. They had replaced me because their daughter (who coincidentally looked exactly like me) had died and they had buried her without telling anyone. By the time I was taken from them, I was six years old and because they had been abusive towards me I lost my hearing and never got it back.

I was adopted by an Amish couple who had seen me in town one day. I had been going to my ASL class to learn Sign Language. The Foster Family that I had been staying with was adamant that I learned ASL so that I would be able to communicate with whoever decided to adopt me. I grew up in Holmes County, Ohio with my new Amish family. I knew and remembered nothing of my past until I got older. The abuse that left me deaf also took the memories of my birth family. And because I had their dead daughter's birth certificate, everyone believed that was who I was. The people who adopted me, known as my mam and dat allowed me to keep the name Aleyla Moon but added their last name of Horwitz so that it sounded more like I belonged.

But because I had been deafened and I would no longer be able to hear, mam, dat, the Bishop and a few other key family members like my siblings also learned ASL so that I would be able to communicate without having to write everything down. It was hard at first for everyone to learn ASL but in the end, and with the help of a very dedicated Englisher teacher who was allowed within the house every day for lessons, the family and Bishop learned the language well and we are now the only ASL speaking Amish family in the community, though the Englisher's tend to stare when we go in to town for some goods and to sell some of dat's furniture. Mam also sells some home-made goods in the grocery store and I help her with the cooking.

Having grown up in the English world, I could help mam with the negotiating, even though we were signing throughout the entire negotiation. Dat also brought me to town when he ran into a tourist family who was deaf and looking to buy some of his furniture. I get paid to interpret for whoever wishes to use my signing abilities. But the deaf tourists are few and far between so it only ever happens in normally the summer time when the tourists abound by the many. The only thing that was hard for translation was Church, but all I had to do was sit quietly and wait till the end. The Bishop always came over during the meal gatherings and explained what had been said, since he had to sign in American and not Pennsylvania Dutch.

My community was part of the New Order Amish, so we had some electricity in our homes and places of work. Since almost all Amish lived on farms, dat had to figure out how to make his furniture in the true Amish custom without breaking any laws from within the church. New Order Amish are allowed electricity if it is to help with your business and since our business was selling furniture; we were allowed electricity in the barn, which is dat's workshop. He builds all his furniture in the hay loft where I used to hang out as a child because nobody would bother me. I took to writing in a journal when I was very young to get my frustrations out and since I never had to learn Dutch, it was easier to write in the language that I already knew. Although, when I entered school, my older sister had to translate for me since our teacher and assistant teacher didn't know ASL.

When mam and dat learned that I was keeping a journal of my experiences, they at first wanted to read it. But after talking with the Bishop, they learned that it was okay that I write down my feelings. Most girls my age in the world I had grown up in before being Amish Adopted kept journals and the Bishop said it would help keep my feelings under control. You see, the Bishop had a friend who was married to a former psychiatrist. The psychiatrist had joined the Amish Community to marry her husband and believed that my writing in a journal would also bring some sort of closure. Mam and dat no longer ask about my journal, but they know that I still keep one. I think they believe that if my birth family ever wanted to make contact, they would understand how I was raised.

No one, not even my own family understood just how right my parents' thinking was. But it wouldn't be the people the state had taken me from that showed up with some question. It would be the family that I was born to and kidnapped from that showed up and started to ask some questions. And it would be only after my biological half-sister and her family came to Lancaster on vacation and mentioned how much I looked like their daughter.

How would we all react to this news that I had been kidnapped by the people that had beaten my hearing away along with all my memories about what had happened before I was adopted? Would I still be able to live with my Amish family? Or would my Englisher family make me move back in with them for good? Would I be able to still be myself after everything was out in the open?

More to come in next chapter…

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