Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes Summary | Plot Summary

William Halloway and James Nightshade are two boys who live in the small Midwestern town of Green Town, Illinois. Born a few days apart, and just short of their fourteenth birthdays, the two boys live next door to each other and are inseparable best friends. A mysterious lightning rod salesman comes through town and strikes up a conversation with the boys, warning them that a storm is approaching. The boys learn that a carnival is coming to town called Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show; they see ads in the stores downtown.

Charles Halloway is Will's father. He is fifty-four-years-old, and feels old and unhappy. He is the janitor in the town's public library, which is also his favorite refuge, especially late at night when no one else is there. Charles also sees the posters for the carnival and feels nostalgic for his youth.

Train whistles awaken the boys at three in the morning. It is late in the year for a carnival to be showing up (a week before Halloween), and an even stranger thing for it to show up in the middle of the night. At the library, Charles Halloway also hears the whistle and gets a strange feeling. The boys sneak out of their bedrooms and go to the carnival grounds to look at the eerie sight of the train parked there silently. The next day, they discover the Mirror Maze, from which they rescue their panicked teacher, Miss Foley. Jim is magnetically drawn to the carnival, and sneaks back that night after it is closed. Will is hurt that Jim has gone without him, and he follows Jim there.

The boys come upon a merry-go-round, but two gruff men tell them the ride is broken. The two men turn out to be the owners of the carnival, Mr. Cooger and Mr. Dark. The boys are told to go home and come back the next day, but they run off and hide and watch. They see Mr. Cooger get on the carousel as it starts turning backwards. When he gets off, he is a twelve-year-old boy. Later, the boys chase the young Mr. Cooger until he gets back on the ride and goes forward, growing older as he does. The boys inadvertently break the switchbox for the ride, so the ride keeps going around and around with Mr. Cooger on it, until he is over one-hundred-years-old when he finally gets off. Jim and Will run away.

Mr. Halloway suspects that something unusual is going on with the two boys, but Will wants him to stay out of it. An evil witch from the carnival comes towards Will's house in a hot-air balloon looking for him, but Will manages to destroy the balloon and get away. The next day Will and Jim find an unfamiliar little girl crying hysterically by the side of the road. They realize with a shock that it is their teacher, Miss Foley, after she has taken a ride on the carousel.

Will and Jim finally tell Mr. Halloway everything, and he decides to help them. While the carnival is parading through town, Mr. Halloway meets Mr. Dark, and tells him who he is and where he works. Later that night, Mr. Halloway is in the library with the two boys when Mr. Dark enters. The boys hide, but Mr. Dark finds them and crushes Mr. Halloway's hand when he tries to stop Mr. Dark. Dark takes the boys away and sends the witch in to make Mr. Halloway's heart stop. Just as Mr. Halloway is about to go under, he opens his eyes and looks at the witch; he is struck by the absurdity of the situation he is in and the absurdity of life in general, and he begins laughing loudly in the witch's face. This scares the witch off, and saves him.

Back at the carnival, Mr. Halloway surprises Mr. Dark by coming out of the crowd and volunteering to participate in an act onstage where someone shoots a rifle at the witch, but she catches the bullet and survives. Mr. Halloway shoots the witch, but something goes wrong with the act and she dies. Will comes out of the hypnotic stupor that Mr. Dark put him in, but Jim goes and gets on the carousel and begins to ride forward. Will manages to pull Jim off, and Jim lies on the ground, apparently dead. Will begins crying, but Mr. Halloway yells at him to dance, sing, laugh, anything. Eventually, they both jump around whooping and hollering, and Jim wakes up. The carnival crashes down around them and disappears into the night.