Katabasis

They leave the First Court and are faced with the Lethe, which runs between the Courts and Lord Yama’s domain. The Lethe is the river of forgetting: After one forgets their memories, they can be reincarnated.

Alice sees Old Lady Meng Po, guardian of the river, who enchants Alice into wanting to forget her memories. Peter manages to bring her back to herself. They walk along the river, but the Second Court gets no closer. Along the way, creatures made of bone and chalk converge on them. They manage to scare the “bone-things” by getting close to the Lethe, as chalk recalls deep memory and the Lethe erases memory. Even though the bone-things leave, their existence confirms the presence of another “keen rational mind” (113) in Hell, who is watching them.

A section titled “On Chalk” explains how the material that makes chalk connects a magician to the life forces of the past. The main difference between magical and normal chalk is that magical chalk can draw on any surface. Because of this, Peter and Alice never considered that it might not work in Hell.