Great reading. Connolly should do all the adolescent characters from now on. I think she nails the voice even better than Mur Lafferty.
I had two major problems with the story:
1. It took for-EVER to get to the fantasy element, and when we got there, it felt a little trite. Like, this old dude has a magic door in his house so he sends stray animals through it for their own happiness? I can appreciate where the character is coming from, but WAY too much was left unanswered -- how did the door get put there? Did he make it, when he was younger and able to do magic? Did someone else put it there? Who was he listening to when he cocked his head? Is he sort of a Dr. Doolittle with supernatural powers? Telling the story from Sal's POV precluded us from learning most of these things but still, without them I felt empty.
2. The carnival metaphor -- to my mind, overused in fiction, especially when the gun in the first act fails to fire in the third. Also, and maybe this is just my own experiences, carnivals tend to linger for at least two full weekends, and where I grew up (south FL), the Broward County Fair stayed at least a month, long enough to host several exhibits and competitions like the spelling bee. I felt it extended the story overmuch, and was unrelated to pretty much anything. I could've lived without it and saved five or six minutes of description and reading. I suppose it's there to show how Sal doesn't really get to have any fun because Macie is sick, but I still didn't like it.
All that said, I echo the good comments made by others -- nailing the voice, the building of tension (nice three-act wave there with the trash heist, the fight, and then the jump into the backyard, though I think there's a missing scene between when Dad calls home and when Sal jumps into the Weirdo's yard), the sad realization that Sal isn't going to be able to use the door to save Macie.
It was kind of a shame that I could guess where this story was going just because of what podcast it was on. I kept thinking about how different a feeling I'd have of it were it presented on Pseudopod.
I agree. There was that vibe. I almost feel like if you mixed this with the recent PP where the dad keeps the kids locked in the house and the older brother makes model airplanes...
Anyway, a decent story, though too long and I wasn't terribly pleased with the payoff.