Katie and Mary Elyse lived peacefully over the next year. However, neither could have realized that, even though the ring was gone, vanished into some other .... option ... it's magic was far from gone from their lives. In fact, KAtie had absorbed a great deal of the strange, purple energy as it leaked out once it was damaged.
And that's where something interesting happened.
Somewhere, deep in the recesses of Katie's mind, she knew *something* wasn't right, but the magic had affected her too deeply, so she didn't know what. Yet some tiny insignificant part of her brain knew: mother 43, daughter 7. And that subconsciously began affecting the residual magic that dwelled within Katie.
It started out innocently enough. Mary Elyse enjoyed starting her freshman year of high school. Then one day, the principal called 38-year-old Katie, and said, while they gave it a try, "moving Mary Elyse up a grade was not the right move, as she was falling behind," and the now thirteen year old was being sent back to eighth grade.
A few months later, the principal called 39-year-old Katie, and told her the same thing: the 12-year-old wasn't ready for eighth grade, and would be sent back to seventh.
Katie received this call several times over the course of the year, never recalling the previous call. And Mary Elyse, although a smart girl (wise beyond her years, actually) always complied with no argument, as if this was normal.
By the one year anniversary of Katie finding the ring on the ground, she was a 43-year-old attorney -- just as her mother had been -- although taller, bustier, in better shape, and strands of grey mixed into her honey colored hair, although with youthful eyes (Kellie's had yet to find a grey hair before she vanished). And Mary Elyse , with her slender frame and long red hair, was her smart, responsible 7-year-old foster daughter.
The scales had been balanced. A girl to replace young Katie and a mother to replace Kellie.
Neither Katie nor Mary Elyse would ever see the ring again. Of course.... Katie did have some residual magic within her. And she could, without realizing, affect the ages of those around her. Subtly making people younger or older, without anyone realizing it. Not even herself ... thanks to the damaged ring, she, and everyone she would inadvertently affect was blind to it.
The only one she really had little affect on, was Mary Elyse. Whenever Katie absent-mindedly affected her daughter's age, she would never age older than 15 (Katie's last wish for her at the beach), or younger than 7 (her "balance" age) ... and she would always return to age 7 after Katie would move on to something else. And neither would be the wiser. That is, until her 8th birthday, then it would return to 8...until her 9th birthday. From here on out, her base age would only permanently change once a year, just like everyone else.
And they may have had an adventure or two without realizing what they were doing to those around them, but... that's a story branch for another day.