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@this-is-not-an-alien

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Cathy!

Much appreciated!  I so enjoy and needed this feedback!  You have been so much help!

I can hardly wait to hear, perhaps, the your entries or those of others who venture onto this Topic!

Don’t feel the need to make a recording fancy.  I have been experimenting with audio files for a few years now.  It took me a while to learn all the little nifty tricks of audio production (on a budget of free 😉 ).
Even if you want to record a “rough cut” just try it.

There is something about hearing it back that allows us to perceive our own writing in a very different way.  It is something more than just reading it aloud to ourselves.  Engage the family in it too, if you want them to do different character voices. It lets them in on your creative process and they become even more excited for what you are doing.  You may find they enjoy it so much they are more willing to let you have some “me” time to write scenes that include some of “their” characters.

Thank you so much for your encouragement!

Your instincts are on target.
I am employing much of the “passive voice” deliberately in this opening scene.  The “old woman” is, in fact, villainous and not the MC, nor is she a “human” entity, but something much worse.  Some authors begin with their MC, but I didn’t for some very good reasons. (At least, I think so, anyway.)

I want the sense that she is laying a trap of deception for the MC and the ones he will lead when they arrive.  I want the reader to feel she is off, but not know too much about her at the beginning. (We will pay-out the crumbs of what she is as the story progresses, but I wanted to subtly plant the seeds of danger, quietly in the field of imagination before harvesting them.  That is why she is sketchily defined at first.  To leave you feeling that she is “off” in some ways.)

I think you picked that up nicely, so perhaps I have quietly planted my field as intended.
I will use the active voice more, but there will be some passive voice too as character volition becomes more deliberate.
My MC, afterall, has a past that leaves him uncertain of how best to proceed into a place where he was once hunted by the villains of this place, and shunned by the friends that he betrayed.  He was a recluse, having very few friends, before he left, and now, upon returning, must gain their trust again, and most of all trust more fully in The One who called him back.

I expect the active voice will grow stronger as he gains confidence and is raised to his calling.

I  do consider myself to be more of a thriller writer than a horror writer.  I am more aligned with a Dean Koontz type than a Stephen King.  I am more overt in my faith and deliberately bring that out even moreso later, for I do not feel that I am writing for a secular audience.  I feel called to write Fantasy for Christians, so there is more of an arc into the Lordship Walk towards maturity, than an appeal to share the basic gospel.  The need is great to encourage Christians to move beyond the entryway of their salvation experience into the “working out of our own salvation” as the Apostle Paul describes in Philippians 2:12.  I think too often people of faith forget that the world will not be drawn to a Jesus who seems to make no difference in our own lives.  It is upon us to let The Vine bear His fruit upon us as branches.  That gets the attention of the lost world more than just preaching it.  SO, my stories challenge Christians to walk deeper, dig deeper, yield more of themselves to Christ to find their empowerment from Him and not in their own strength.  God subverts man’s expectations continually. His strength is made perfect in weakness, He tells Paul.
1 Corinthians 1:27 says: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;”

He says to be ruler of much, we must be faithful in the few.  He says the last, will be made first.  He came as the Lamb to be Slain first before He will return as the Lion of Judah and Judge.  He says the one who would lead, should make himself a servant of all.  These are typical of the positions of God as revealed by Scripture.  He calls the overlooked, the cripple, the humble, the unloved and raises them to be His champions.  That is what I feel compelled to tap into.  We can relate more to these than we ever could a champion by the world’s definition of such.

C.S. Lewis chose to use displaced, frightened children as his “heroes” who would thwart the White Witch Jadis, by sitting on the four Thrones of Cair Paravel.
Tolkien chose the smallest, simple folk of Hobbits in the unassuming humble village of the Shire to thwart the power-seekers who wanted control through The One Ring, and put them on an unlikely path through terrors to accomplish that.

I think too often we writers lose sight of that.  That the unlikely hero is the most relatable one.  We give our MC’s too much power, when the ultimate path to gaining is to yield ourselves to God’s authority, and find ourselves lifted in Him.