The muddy path to la Bélène

The Résistants hunkered down in these woods and they chose well.  The children who'd grown up in the farms on its edges were warned not to go in because they'd never find their way out. Hidden corners of it have been given names such as the something-or-other-of-the-hung-man, in a biblical Valley of the Shadow of Death way. The hunters have a log hut by a well where I imagine the worthier and braver freedom fighters would have had their camp.  Their runners would have got to know the paths well, but we have always failed.  
Mu announced that she was the mapmatician and lead us faultlessly and without deviation to the lake we'd tried to find one summer and back out again.  
Knowing her need for approbation, I compared her accomplishment to a tribal rite of passage; Separation, Transition and Return.   She just shrugged and said that is was down to GPS.   
She riding high because being 18 meant she could buy Nico's tobacco this morning.  
Rites of passage aren't what they used to be