wished to become young. Her wish is granted, although she is transformed into a little girl with all her memories intact, unable to return to her former life and with no one to take care of her. It is not stated in the novel what happened to Miss Foley at the end. The Skeleton An extremely thin, skeleton-like creature who is one of the more frequently appearing freaks. Like all of the other freaks, he once desired to be younger and was eventually tricked into joining the carnival. The Skeleton appears to be one of the more loyal freaks as, near the book's end, he takes the time to carry the recently deceased and young Mr. Dark with him after all the other freaks ran away. He is last seen walking away into the hills that border the town. Tom Fury/Dwarf A lightning rod salesman who, succumbing to his desire to see the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, is turned into an insane dwarf by the carnival and is recruited into it, with no memories of his former life. Themes As in Dandelion Wine, Bradbury infuses the novel with nostalgia for his childhood. However, Dandelion Wine embodies the idyllic memories of youth, whereas Something Wicked This Way Comes superimposes folk-tale and supernatural elements over a small-town Americana setting in order to explore the dark undercurrents that surround the transition to adulthood. The novel also conveys the theme that the power of people, objects, and ideas have over you depends on the power you instill in them with your own mind. Because of this, the carnival is able to easily take advantage of the common human fears of aging, death, and loneliness which everyone has or relates to. Self-centered desires and wishes are portrayed as the base of human malice and unhappiness because they blind people to the blessings of life with an unattainable dream. The novel's main example of this is Miss Foley's seduction by Cooger's promise of youth that causes her to fail to see his deception as her "nephew" and lose her rightful place in society. It is implied that the counter-force against this is acceptance of one's faults and an enthusiastic pursuit of the everyday joys of life, signified by Charles' spontaneous running with Jim and Will at the end of the novel. The fact that he is nearly forty years older than them pales in