something wicked this way comes

Summary

William Halloway and James Nightshade are thirteen year old boys living in Green Town, Illinois. They will turn fourteen within a week. A lightning-rod salesman comes into town and warns the boys that a storm is coming. He gives Jim a lightning rod to put up on his roof. The boys visit Charles Halloway, Will's father, at the library and take out some books. Charles Halloway feels old, although he is only fifty-four, and he is tormented by an urge to be young and run like the boys. Both Charles Halloway and the boys learn about the carnival that is to start the next day. Will's father sees a sign in a store window that advertises Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, and Jim and Will find a similar handbill in the street. The boys are excited that a carnival has come so late in the year. Charles Halloway has a bad feeling about the carnival, and Will senses his father's fear. Jim fears nothing and wants only more adventure. The boys run out to watch the carnival arrive at three in the morning, and they run home after watching the tents get set up. Mr. Halloway is concerned because the carnival has arrived at a time when men are closest to death, locked in the depths of despair.

The boys go the next day to explore the carnival and they help their seventh grade teacher, Miss Foley, who panics inside the Mirror Maze. Later in the day Jim goes into the maze and Will has to pull him out. Jim insists on coming back that night, and Will agrees, but then they bump into the lightning-rod salesman's bag and they realize that they must stay to learn what has happened to the man. Finally, after searching all of the rides, they go up to a carousel that is supposedly broken. A huge man grabs Will and Jim and tells them that the merry-go-round is broken. Another man tells him to put them down, introduces himself as Mr. Dark and tells them the other man's name is Mr. Cooger. Mr. Dark is the Illustrated Man, covered in tattoos, and he pays attention only to Jim, who is enthralled by what he sees. Mr. Dark tells them to come back the next day and the boys run off but then hide and wait. What they see is unbelievable. Mr. Cooger rides backwards on the carousel (while the music plays backwards), and when he steps off of it his is twelve years old.

They follow Mr. Cooger to Miss Foley's house, where he pretends to be her nephew who got lost earlier at the carnival...

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... than his years. Throughout the beginning of the book he is slow to act and wary of interfering too much with his son's life, something that he considers outside of his domain, as an old man, to step into. At the same time as all of this is occurring he feels an empathy for his son and his friend because he longs for the days of his youth when he ran free and happy. At a critical moment in the book he shows himself to be a man of action, surprising even himself. He protects the boys from Mr. Dark and the Witch with poise and daring. Charles Halloway realizes that things are changing, and that point is driven home when Mr. Dark comes that night, takes the boys, and crushes his left hand. He is left behind to be killed by the witch, but suddenly Mr. Halloway stops pretending to be an old man and starts acting like the youthful fifty-four year old that he feels himself to be. Finally comfortable with his life, he begins to take the initiative, driving off the Witch and then storming the carnival for the final showdown. It turns out that a fully confident and content Charles Halloway is more than a match for the forces of evil, and he manages to bring Will and Jim home safe and sound.