The sun had barely begun to climb over the green hills of Westmoreland, Jamaica, when the small marketplace in the district of Savanna-la-Mar started to come alive.
Vendors arrived before dawn, pushing wooden carts or balancing baskets of produce on their heads. The smell of fresh fruits filled the morning air—sweet mangoes, ripe bananas, and pineapples that glistened with dew from the night. Women spread out their tarps and arranged vegetables carefully, calling greetings to one another in voices thick with the warmth of Jamaican patois.
"Morning, Miss Gloria!"
"Morning, Miss Patsy. How the pickney dem?"
"Dem good, man. Dem good."
Roosters crowed in the distance. Taxi drivers leaned against their cars nearby, waiting for the first passengers of the day.
It was the kind of morning that seemed ordinary—just another day in a small Jamaican town where everyone knew everyone and life moved to the rhythm of the hills.
But that morning would become one the community would never forget.
Because that was the morning they found the baby.
Miss Gloria was the first to hear it.
She was a stout woman in her fifties who had sold callaloo and yams in the market for nearly twenty years. Her stall sat beneath a crooked almond tree that offered shade from the blazing Caribbean sun.
As she arranged bunches of thyme on her wooden table, a strange sound reached her ears.
At first she ignored it.
But then it came again.
A small, weak cry.
She paused, her hands freezing mid-motion.
"Eh eh... wha dat?"
She looked around.
The other vendors continued working, unaware of the sound.
Then it came again.
A soft wail.
Like a newborn kitten.
Or... a baby.
Miss Gloria frowned and stepped out from behind her stall.
"Unnu hear dat?" she called out.
Miss Patsy looked up from stacking oranges.
"Hear wah?"
Miss Gloria listened carefully.
The cry echoed again, slightly louder this time.
Her heart skipped.
"Dat sound like baby..."
Now the others stopped what they were doing.
The marketplace fell into uneasy silence as everyone strained to listen.
And then—
WAAAAAH.
The cry was unmistakable.
A baby.
The sound seemed to be coming from near the edge of the marketplace, beside a row of empty crates.
Miss Gloria hurried toward the area, her slippers slapping against the dusty ground.
"Lawd have mercy," she muttered.
Miss Patsy followed behind her.
"Who would leave baby out here so?"
YOU ARE READING
From The Hills to the Stars
RomanceThis story is about a girl who was abandonment by her mother in the marketplace at 3 months old but was found by her father how raised and supported her. She suffered abuse and trauma which she suffered in silence. After being dumped by her boyfrien...
