Something Wicked This Way Comes takes place in Green Town, Illinois, in October. Against the backdrop of a "normal" American small town, Jim and Will discover that not everything is as it seems. The carnival, which changes the atmosphere of the town soon after its arrival, is filled with familiar sideshows —the Freak Tent, the merry-go-round, and the mirror maze. By juxtaposing the mundane and the fantastic, Bradbury gives the reader the opportunity to relate to the setting before he introduces the "wicked" elements into his plot.