Resumo de Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a supernatural fantasy tale of two young boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, on the threshold between childhood and adolescence. The elder by two minutes is Will, son of the town?s elderly librarian, while Jim is a child of Halloween, born one minute after midnight. Neighbours and near twins they complement each other, Will playing the light to Jim?s darker leanings, a darkness that is rooted in the absence of his father.
The arrival of a mystical lightening rod salesman, Tom Fury, to their small Illinois town late one October sets the tone for the unearthly events following soon. Claiming to be able to smell lightening he tells the boys that a storm will hit them that very night and gives them a strange lightening rod covered in Egyptian and Arabic symbols. But as they lie in bed later they don?t hear the promised tempest. Instead, at the deathly hour of three a.m. comes the sound of a train heading toward their town. An ancient steam locomotive that pulls a macabre carnival behind it.
Cooger and Dark?s Pandemonium Shadow Show. The curious boys are drawn towards it and the colourful denizens: Mr Dark, The Illustrated Man whose tattoos seem to move across his skin; Mr Electro, seemingly a living corpse who can survive a thousand volts of electricity; The Blimp; The Wart; The Skeleton; Monsieur Guillotine; and, most frightening of all, The Sand Witch who is more than the waxwork dummy that she initially appears to be. Creeping round the fairground after the visitors have gone Will and Jim witness Mr Cooger being rejuvenated into a young boy on the carousel as it rotates backwards. Their fears that the carnival is hiding a dark secret are realised when townspeople start to vanish. First Mr Crosetti the barber, then Mr Tetley the storekeeper. When the boys discover the belongings of the missing Tom Fury and see their schoolteacher in the company of the young Mr Cooger they know that they are all in danger.
Gradually Will and Tom come to understand what is going on. The carnival folk have the power to see deep inside each soul and the desires and longings within. The have the power to grant these desires, but at a terrible price. Realising that they have two unlikely enemies the carnival folk hunt the boys among the everyday world of the town. The blind Sand Witch tries to sniff them out at night; the freaks from the show patrol the streets by day.
The boys must unite with Will?s father to confront the menace, but even so they are vulnerable. Jim yearns to be a grown man before his time. Mr Halloway bears the guilt of being an old father, who wasn?t able to play with his son through Will?s childhood. Mr Dark knows this and understands how to exploit these flaws.
The final confrontation takes place amidst the sinisterly magical surroundings of the Big Top, the Mirror Maze and the Carousel.
First published in 1963 Something Wicked This Way Comes harks back to a halcyon period between the wars. Its fantastical setting bridges the gap between childhood imagination and the reality of being an adult. To describe it as a horror yarn does the book a disservice. It is a tale of bittersweet relations between fathers and sons, and the hidden pain of unfulfilled possibilities.

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