Tongalin Family History Vol. 2

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Image: Tongalin Castle as it stands today on The Crumbling Isle in Windenburg.

Del

Del Hampton, uncle to Vivek and Veronica, and brother to Ari, had, not long before his sister’s sudden death, fallen on hard times. Despite working his way up to the Double Pink Diamond Level of his triangular-shaped company, he had done so by stockpiling product before lining up enough buyers. Del had been essentially gambling with his parents inheritance and finally, his “luck” ran out.

The uncle who was casually uninvited to holiday gatherings at the castle for years prior (he only wanted to talk about the products he was hawking. Sources disagree on the types of products he “sold.”) was now temporarily living in one of the attic rooms. Knowing that Viktor and Ari were doing a favor for an annoying relative makes it all the more clear why such a transgression (making out with her husband) would have broken Ari’s reality.

As if the new addition to their family, and then the sudden and confusing death of their mother wasn’t enough, Vivek and Veronica were now noticing that Uncle Del appeared to be moving from his attic room and into their father’s bedroom.

In this family history series, we’ll see that Viktor will take several long-term partners, as well as some shorter-term, and they will all be male. There has never been an interview with Viktor, or any publication coming from him that explains his preferences or his sexuality. After Ari’s death, Viktor moved out of public life in an intense way, and we only have sightings and newspaper clippings to guide us. In fact, we’ve never been able to interview an ex-partner of Viktor, because we are unaware of any who continue to live.

The children would come to accept their new uncle-father, and life seemed to regain some sense of normalcy. That is, until Uncle Del became pregnant.

I spoke with multiple (8) people who remember, despite it being decades ago at this point, seeing Del walking through the castle courtyard with an unusually large belly.

The only partners we know that Viktor has are male, and we know that Viktor will go on to have many, many children. Combine with those facts these eight sightings of what could be a pregnant Del, and we start to have a very strange story. One very old woman who used to live across the street from the castle claims to have seen Del pregnant, and then saw him again shortly after giving birth, noticing that the big belly was mostly gone.

Our hypothesis is that Viktor has some sort of ability to impregnate men. How or why this is able to happen is truly beyond us. What’s interesting, though, is that we know that this first pregnancy happens before Viktor becomes a vampire. He does not appear to have dabbled in magic (good or evil), and only begrudgingly gets into mediumship much later. This power seems to be part of him, perhaps a yet-unknown genetic quirk.

Del, who formally married Viktor in another private ceremony, eventually gives birth to Maura Tongalin.

Maura

It was right around the birth of Maura that Viktor quit his business job. Neighbors assumed he was so broken up about his wife’s death and then so overwhelmed by his new husband getting pregnant, that he started falling apart. Whatever the reason, this period of time heralded a descent for Viktor into the character we know today.

With three children to feed, a massive castle to pay for, and, by all reports, a fairly helpless husband, Viktor needed an income even if he couldn’t force himself to sit in a office for 80 hours a week. Instead, he started stealing and reselling. By the time his children were young adults, Viktor had become The Boss of his own crime empire, and had expanded the castle by quite a bit. His first-born son had developed an interest in botany, so Viktor even built a generous Victorian greenhouse which connected to the castle via subterranean tunnel.

The incredible excess experienced and enjoyed by the Tongalins and their staff came at a price, however. Viktor became increasingly angry and even mean, treating anyone in his path as a useless pawn. This culture of darkness enveloped his family, as well, and by this point, the happy-go-lucky children had become jaded and depressed adults.

Maura, just having aged up into a young adult, became pregnant. We have been able to find no credible sources naming a father. Around this time we also know that Del is abducted by a flying saucer while wandering the castle grounds after dark. This would be the first of many abductions that seem to plague the Tongalins. We’ll return to that later.

As Maura’s pregnancy progressed, things at the castle seem to fall apart. We know that Veronica moves out of her childhood home and lives in Newcrest for the rest of her life, having minimal contact with her family. Maura, even, would move out before giving birth. We may never know why, but it’s said that she ran away (some say “escaped”) under cover of night, and eventually would settle down in a nearby neighborhood. We also have court records showing that Maura had her surname legally changed to Hampton, her father’s original surname. We’ll return to Maura’s story in another volume.

Vivek

Vivek, notably, stayed in the castle. Something seemingly drove out Veronica and Maura, but Vivek always seemed completely happy and even devoted to his father. The castle, however, would not stay in Newcrest.

The Tongalin Clan now consisted of Viktor, his son Vivek, and his husband Del, now pregnant with an alien baby. The family wanted for nothing, and there was almost constant construction on the castle, expanding and renovating the property. This author is happy to report that, even at its creation, the castle was not considered architecturally significant in any way. That’s a good thing because we can’t be certain that any part of that building is “original” at this point.

However, all was not rosy for Viktor. As his power grew in the crime world, as his family fractured, as he became a pariah in his neighborhood, Viktor knew he needed to start over.

Then, one morning when the citizens of Newcrest awoke, they discovered that Tongalin Castle was completely gone.

It hadn’t been destroyed or demolished. There wasn’t a sliver or glass or bit of brick to be found. It was as if the castle had never been there at all. Were it not for Veronica and Maura still living in town, folks may have assumed the entire experience was a mass-delusion.

Veronica would live out the rest of her life in Newcrest. Though we don’t know anything about her life there or her eventual deal, as she kept an incredibly private life.

Newcrest itself would eventually return to normal. That is to say that it’s a neighborhood in a constant state of transition. We’ll be leaving it here, though, while we follow the Tongalin Clan. We’ll be back to Newcrest in a future volume when we look into the life of one of Maura’s children: Emmit Tongalin.

Years later, long after it had been abandoned, the people of Newcrest (and neighboring Willow Creek) would discover the castle still stood, but was somehow now on a large island off the coast of Windenburg.